Update QuickStart to build the rocky-8 image locally using podman, create a tarball, and import the container using tar archive

[odidev]

Following file has been modified :

el8.md: Added a new topic to include "Building a container from your host". It helps to build images for host platforms whose docker images are not available.

Signed-off-by: odidev [email protected]

[rhenwood-arm]

Thanks for this @odidev it looks good. Feedback from the call today is that we should aim for simplicity during the quick start. I would also like to see a single flow that works on any of the supported architectures.

Can you look into changing the line:
sudo wwctl container import docker://warewulf/rocky:8 rocky-8

Is it possible to actually use this docker file:
https://github.com/hpcng/warewulf/blob/main/containers/Docker/rocky-8
to build the container that we then import into wwctl with wwctl container import?

[odidev]

Thank you for the response.

We might not be able to install and use the docker service on RHEL for the ARM64 platform, since docker on RHEL is only supported on s390x. Here is the official Docker statement to justify the same: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/rhel/#prerequisites

As an alternative, I built rockylinux-8 docker image on the Ubuntu ARM64 platform successfully and pushed it to my personal DockerHub account.

Now, I imported the image as follows, and created the node successfully on the ARM64 RHEL8 bare metal AWS instance:

sudo wwctl container import docker://pshub/rocky_local:latest WWLF_CONTR 

Below are my node details:

$ sudo wwctl node list -a 
################################################################################ 
NODE                 FIELD              PROFILE      VALUE 
n009.cluster         Id                 --           n009.cluster 
n009.cluster         Comment            default      This profile is automatically included for each node 
n009.cluster         Cluster            --           (cluster) 
n009.cluster         Profiles           --           default 
n009.cluster         Discoverable       --           true 
n009.cluster         Container          default      WWLF_CONTR 
n009.cluster         KernelOverride     default      4.18.0-372.9.1.el8.aarch64 
n009.cluster         KernelArgs         --           (quiet crashkernel=no vga=791) 
n009.cluster         SystemOverlay      --           (wwinit) 
n009.cluster         RuntimeOverlay     --           (generic) 
n009.cluster         Ipxe               --           (default) 
n009.cluster         Init               --           (/sbin/init) 
n009.cluster         Root               --           (initramfs) 
n009.cluster         AssetKey           --           -- 
n009.cluster         IpmiIpaddr         --           -- 
n009.cluster         IpmiNetmask        --           -- 
n009.cluster         IpmiPort           --           -- 
n009.cluster         IpmiGateway        --           -- 
n009.cluster         IpmiUserName       --           -- 
n009.cluster         IpmiInterface      --           -- 
n009.cluster         IpmiWrite          --           false 
n009.cluster         default:DEVICE     default      eth0 
n009.cluster         default:HWADDR     --           -- 
n009.cluster         default:IPADDR     --           172.31.3.181 
n009.cluster         default:IPADDR6    --           -- 
n009.cluster         default:NETMASK    default      255.255.240.0 
n009.cluster         default:GATEWAY    default      172.31.3.164 
n009.cluster         default:TYPE       --           -- 
n009.cluster         default:ONBOOT     --           true 
n009.cluster         default:PRIMARY    --           true 

Further, PXE boot progressed and reached the login.

Network: 
    default: eth0 
    default: 172.31.3.181/20 
    default: 52:54:00:1c:3f:07 
n009 login:  

Kindly find here the complete PXE boot logs: pxe_boot_metal_arm64_with_newnet.txt

So, IMO, an official Linux/ARM64 docker image for rockylinux must be available at warewulf Docker hub. We can then import it and create containers for nodes.

[rhenwood-arm]

Ok, good progress. I think rocky is a fine substitute for RHEL in this case.

I think docker is creating a local container before the push. I expect warewulf can import a local container. Can you see if you can avoid the 'push to docker hub' step?

[odidev]

Since we know that RHEL-8 only supports docker for s390x, I found podman as an alternative to Docker.

On my Linux/ARM64 RHEL-8 AWS bare-metal instance, I installed podman and built an image locally using above mentioned rocky-8 docker file.

Then I created a tar archive for that image in /tmp, and imported the container as below:

sudo wwctl container import file://tmp/imagename.tar rocky-8 

This successfully imported the basic VNFS container and the kernel. Nodes got created and PXE boot progressed in the same way as mentioned in my previous comment.

IMO, this would be a utilitarian way if docker images are not available for the host architecture/platform.

I have prepared a commit that includes the above-mentioned steps. Kindly have a look: < odidev@002d257 >

If this looks good, I will amend this PR accordingly.

[odidev]

@rhenwood-arm , can you please review the changes shared in the previous comment. Let me know if I should amend this PR in accordance with the commit I shared.

[rhenwood-arm]

Sorry for the delay... I would like to avoid using podman in this case.

Is it possible to import the newly built container from /var/lib/docker or wherever else the container appears locally after docker build ...?

[odidev]

As I shared above, docker has been removed from dnf in RHEL8 and RockyLinux. So, docker is not available by-default in RHEL8/Rocky dnf/yum.

However, we can explicitly add docker into dnf repository using dnf config-manager --add-repo, as below:

$ sudo dnf update –y 
$ sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo 
$  dnf list docker-ce 
$ dnf install docker-ce --nobest –y 
$ sudo systemctl start docker 
$ systemctl enable docker 
$ docker --version 

I have successfully installed docker on my RHEL8 ARM64 METAL AWS instance and built rocky-8 docker image. I then created a tarball for my rocky-8 image and used that tar to import the container.
Node has been PXE booted successfully.

So, we can replace podman with docker now. Can you please suggest to me if we should add RHEL-8 docker installation steps in the Quickstart or not? I will amend the PR accordingly.

[odidev]

Hi @rhenwood-arm , if the above analysis looks good, should I amend the PR to install docker first, build the image, and then use the tarball to import the container?

[odidev]

I have amended the PR to build image locally using podman, create a tar archive, and import the container using tar.

[jsrz]

Hello, any updates on when this PR could get reviewed?