suboptimal UX when using podman machine (on fedora)

[artificial-intelligence]

Hi!

So, originally I just wanted to try redhat sso in podman-desktop, but that failed silently, reading the docs, I realize I must first start a podman machine via:

podman machine init # works
podman machine start #throws the following error:
podman machine start
Starting machine "podman-machine-default"
ERRO[0000] process 766349 has not ended                 
Error: failed to find virtiofsd: exec: "virtiofsd": executable file not found in $PATH

luckily there was alread an issue, but it's "closed" and I can't comment on it because I'm not an active contributor:

#23127

the tl;dr is, that virtiofsd needs to be installed (it is on my fedora 41 based system) but that doesn't seem to be enough, at least you also need podman-machine package installed, at least on fedora.

So a couple of observations about general user expectations when using a CLI command:

1. a program must work if it's installed correctly.
2. if a program supplies sub commands that need other tools installed there should be either a hard or soft dependency in the rpm package (not sure if downstream packaging for fedora is done somewhere else, I'm a long time fedora user, but I have trouble finding the current dist-git location right now, any pointers would be appreciated).
3. if for some reason the dependency can't be handled automatically (e.g. pulling in large number of packages for only minor usecases), then at least write some more meaningful/user friendly error to STDOUT then the one above, something that is actionable to the user.
4. If that also doesn't work then at least put it in some setup documentation somewhere so you can point users at it. I looked at:

• https://podman.io/docs/installation (this mentions machine only in context of windows and mac and doesn't mention special requirements there.
• https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md (no mention of this issue)
• the official doc for this command also doesn't mention it: https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-machine.1.html

So I wanted to ask what could be done to improve the situation here. As a fellow OSS maintainer myself I know this is a lot of work and I thank you a lot for providing this awesome tool, I would just like to help in getting this specific usecase a little bit smoother.

I guess it would be preferable to solve this in the distro package, because files and dependencies are probably differently organized depending on which distro or OS you use?

Thanks & Best Regards

[afbjorklund]

You are not supposed to use podman machine at all on Fedora, there is a systemd service that should be started instead...

Unfortunately there are some bugs in PD where it tries to run it itself, and there is no documentation or GUI for "machine".

So it should be possible to start a machine, also on Linux:

• Linux is missing from Podman installation, only Mac and Windows podman-desktop/podman-desktop#6225

• Using Podman Desktop on Linux with newer version in Podman Machine podman-desktop/podman-desktop#5762

But on Fedora, it should not be needed. Only podman.socket.

[afbjorklund]

You are correct about the gvproxy (gvisor-tap-vsock) and virtiofsd being underdocumented, but they should be covered by the requirements of "podman-machine" rpm... Just that the normal Fedora user doesn't have to use podman machine, they can just use podman natively. Normally it is the Ubuntu user that would want to run a newer version than what is provided, and starting a Fedora VM is one way to accomplish that.

Now, if you are trying to use the docker client or the podman-remote client it will sometimes give you a misleading suggestion on how to fix the problem of the socket not being started. But you don't have to listen to it, and can instead start the systemd service (while enabling "linger" for your user, so that it doesn't stop). The Podman Desktop GUI app tries to do this automatically, but unfortunately it doesn't use systemd for it.

• Podman Desktop service installation vs. Podman systemd service installation podman-desktop/podman-desktop#2903

Current: podman system service --time=0 &

Preferred: systemctl --user start podman.socket

The full --remote documentation is here: https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/docs/tutorials/remote_client.md

Note: You don't need to set up SSH for localhost

The error you get normally looks something like:

Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock. Is the docker daemon running?

Cannot connect to Podman. Please verify your connection to the Linux system using `podman system connection list`, or try `podman machine init` and `podman machine start` to manage a new Linux VM
Error: unable to connect to Podman socket: Get "http://d/v4.9.3/libpod/_ping": dial unix /run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock: connect: no such file or directory: unix:///run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock```

[afbjorklund]

The podman-machine RPM does seem to have both requirements listed, so they should have been installed as dependencies:

# rpm -qp --requires podman-machine-5.3.2-1.fc41.x86_64.rpm 
gvisor-tap-vsock
podman = 5:5.3.2-1.fc41
qemu
rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1
rpmlib(FileDigests) <= 4.6.0-1
rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1
rpmlib(PayloadIsZstd) <= 5.4.18-1
virtiofsd

#23127 (comment)

I think we need a public service announcement of the form:

"Are you using podman-machine on Linux (e.g. Fedora?); then dnf -y install podman-machine or equivalent"

[artificial-intelligence]

The podman-machine RPM does seem to have both requirements listed, so they should have been installed as dependencies:

Yes, sorry, I misread:

You are not supposed to use podman machine at all on Fedora, there is a systemd service that should be started instead

for: "you are not supposed to install podman machine. That confused me. Why would I have something installed that I should not use.

fwiw I can't seem to make the podman socket active via a users systemd unit, only as root(via sudo).

ystemctl --user status podman.socket
○ podman.socket - Podman API Socket
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/podman.socket; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: inactive (dead)
   Triggers: ● podman.service
       Docs: man:podman-system-service(1)
     Listen: /run/user/4216768/podman/podman.sock (Stream)

Feb 13 11:59:35 $hostname-censored systemd[3106]: podman.socket: Socket service podman.service already active, refusing.
Feb 13 11:59:35 $hostname-censored systemd[3106]: Failed to listen on podman.socket - Podman API Socket.

but I'm not sure if that's relevant, afaik the socket is only started on demand via socket activation and manual activation via start might interfere with already running processes like podman-machine and podman-desktop?

from what I read in your linked issue this seems to be the case.

So I think another issue is, that there is some misleading communication, because e.g. the redhat SSO extension in podman-desktop tells you in their docs:

The extension requires a running Podman Machine which grants root privileges required to run subscription-manager. In order to create a Podman Machine you may run podman machine init in your terminal; Podman Desktop and the extension will then be able to use that Podman Machine.

Source

This is why I installed podman-machine in the first place.

But it's also bad UX, again, to provide a command - podman machine - that just does not work and doesn't tell the user how they can make it work, even if you ignore all the other stuff in my posting.

[afbjorklund]

I think they assume that the user is running Mac or Windows...

EDIT: No (it does say Linux), it was just underdocumented how

Docker Desktop had the same problem, for a long time

(Fortunately you can run Docker Engine and Podman Engine)

From a technical perspective, the extension is not required when running on Linux. You can run podman login registry.redhat.io and subscription-manager register with the credentials of your Red Hat account.

Anyway, you should probably open an issue with the Red Hat SSO plugin of Podman Desktop, for more docs?

But apparently the problem was already known there:

• Linux Support redhat-developer/podman-desktop-redhat-account-ext#71

If it is any consolation, the situation is worse on Ubuntu.

[artificial-intelligence]

downstream bug created for fedora: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2345574