system tests failing due to shortnames

[edsantiago]

Fedora gating tests are now failing due to shortnames:

# [podman pull ubuntu]
# Error: error getting default registries to try: short-name resolution enforced but cannot prompt without a TTY

This is going to be difficult to solve due to the prevalence of shortnames in buildah tests. Possibilities I see are:

• replace all shortnames in buildah/tests with FQINs - this might cost us test coverage of buildah shortname handling
• hand-hack the podman shortnames file (~/.config/.cache/containers/short-name-aliases.conf) - this might not be appreciated by people running tests on a shared system.
• override podman, just tell it "do what you used to do" - is that possible? I can't find much documentation on shortnames

Any other ideas?

[vrothberg]

Fedora gating tests are now failing due to shortnames:

# [podman pull ubuntu]
# Error: error getting default registries to try: short-name resolution enforced but cannot prompt without a TTY

This is going to be difficult to solve due to the prevalence of shortnames in buildah tests. Possibilities I see are:

* replace all shortnames in `buildah/tests` with FQINs - this might cost us test coverage of buildah shortname handling

Yes, we should aim for the test coverage. The failing tests are good sign in that context :)

* hand-hack the podman shortnames file (`~/.config/.cache/containers/short-name-aliases.conf`) - this might not be appreciated by people running tests on a shared system.

Note that the path is not ~/.config/.cache anymore (was a bug). It's now ~/.cache.

I think the tests should run with https://github.com/containers/shortnames/blob/main/shortnames.conf in the /etc/containers/registries.conf.d. This config is now also shipped in the Fedora package (the one that also install registries.conf).

* override podman, just tell it "do what you used to do" - is that possible? I can't find much documentation on shortnames

Prompting only works with a TTY. Please let me know if man registries.conf is missing information.

[edsantiago]

I think the tests should run with

Meaning, "I think the tests are probably running with [...]", or "I think we should change things such that"? I can't compare files now to verify, but from what I see in your link, that shortnames.conf wouldn't help in any way: it does not contain ubuntu or busybox or php.

Note that the path is not ~/.config/.cache anymore (was a bug). It's now ~/.cache.

Do you mean "It's now ~/.config"? containers-registries.conf(5) (thanks for the reference!) claims to use $XDG_CONFIG_HOME with fallback to ~/.config.

Regardless: I'm still not understanding what you suggest that I do. I see that buildah has a --registries-conf flag that could possibly be used to override shortnames.conf; does podman have an equivalent? Or an environment-variable way to override registries.conf, containers.conf, shortnames.conf? [EDIT: UPDATE: found it, yes, podman has --registries-conf, but it seems to ignore [aliases] entries in said file. I'm still struggling to figure this out]

[edsantiago]

This may be connected to containers/podman#9766

[vrothberg]

This may be connected to containers/podman#9766

AFAIK REGISTRIES_CONFIG_PATH is supported by Podman only. vgrep REGISTRIES revealed one reference in tests/helpers.bash. Do we need support in Buildah as well?

[vrothberg]

I think the tests should run with

Meaning, "I think the tests are probably running with [...]", or "I think we should change things such that"? I can't compare files now to verify, but from what I see in your link, that shortnames.conf wouldn't help in any way: it does not contain ubuntu or busybox or php.

That may actually be the bug. Great catch! I would have put my hand in fire knowing that all these images already have aliases. I'll open a PR immediately. Thank you!

Note that the path is not ~/.config/.cache anymore (was a bug). It's now ~/.cache.

Do you mean "It's now ~/.config"? containers-registries.conf(5) (thanks for the reference!) claims to use $XDG_CONFIG_HOME with fallback to ~/.config.

The man page must be outdated (Cc: @lsm5).

Here's a link to release-5.10 docs: https://github.com/containers/image/blob/release-5.10/docs/containers-registries.conf.5.md#short-name-aliasing-modes

There are two kinds of configs to store aliases:

1. The ordinary registries.conf files. Those are intended to be configured by the distros and the users.
2. $CACHE/containers/short-name-aliases.conf which is meant to be written by machines only (i.e., after a prompt and successful pull).

Regardless: I'm still not understanding what you suggest that I do. I see that buildah has a --registries-conf flag that could possibly be used to override shortnames.conf;

Apologies for having been vague. On second thought, I think that explicitly pointing the tests to a registries.conf that we control is the right thing. I was first pointing out that Fedora should have the images aliased already but a) that doesn't seem to be true as you found out and b) the tests/CI should provide all data needed to execute properly.

That being said, I think we need to assemble a registries.conf and run Buildah with --registries.conf.

does podman have an equivalent? Or an environment-variable way to override registries.conf, containers.conf, shortnames.conf? [EDIT: UPDATE: found it, yes, podman has --registries-conf, but it seems to ignore [aliases] entries in said file. I'm still struggling to figure this out]

I think that podman's --registries-conf flag may only partially work if at all. The flag is hidden and untested.

[edsantiago]

we need to assemble a registries.conf and run Buildah with --registries.conf.

That's already done in buildah tests.

I think there's some confusion here (my fault) due to the mix of buildah and podman. To make sure everyone is on the same page:

• buildah tests use shortnames all over the place
• ...including a helper function called prefetch, which is used to minimize registry hits (i.e. flake opportunities) by caching images
• prefetch uses podman to pull images (because buildah has no save/load commands)
• even with --registries-conf-file=same-as-buildah, podman ignores the shortnames directive

I suppose another possible fix is to replace podman pull with buildah pull in _prefetch(), keeping podman for save/load. I'll take a look at that today.