file changes not registered by inotifywait inside podman on Mac

[fracado]

Is this a BUG REPORT or FEATURE REQUEST? (leave only one on its own line)

/kind bug

Description

inotifywait executed inside podman container does not register changes in watched files coming from host (Mac).

Steps to reproduce the issue:

podman machine stop
podman machine rm
podman machine init
podman machine start

podman run -it -v /Users:/Users alpine
and then inside:

apk add inotify-tools
inotifywait /Users/<some folder>

3. in another terminal then change a file in that folder

Describe the results you received:

The changes are not registered by inotifywait in podman

Describe the results you expected:

File changes should be registered by inotifywait in podman

Additional information you deem important (e.g. issue happens only occasionally):

Output of podman version:

Client:       Podman Engine
Version:      4.2.0
API Version:  4.2.0
Go Version:   go1.18.5
Built:        Wed Aug 10 22:46:05 2022
OS/Arch:      darwin/arm64

Server:       Podman Engine
Version:      4.2.0
API Version:  4.2.0
Go Version:   go1.18.4
Built:        Thu Aug 11 16:43:11 2022
OS/Arch:      linux/arm64

Output of podman info:

host:
  arch: arm64
  buildahVersion: 1.27.0
  cgroupControllers:
  - cpu
  - io
  - memory
  - pids
  cgroupManager: systemd
  cgroupVersion: v2
  conmon:
    package: conmon-2.1.0-2.fc36.aarch64
    path: /usr/bin/conmon
    version: 'conmon version 2.1.0, commit: '
  cpuUtilization:
    idlePercent: 97.54
    systemPercent: 1.09
    userPercent: 1.37
  cpus: 1
  distribution:
    distribution: fedora
    variant: coreos
    version: "36"
  eventLogger: journald
  hostname: localhost.localdomain
  idMappings:
    gidmap:
    - container_id: 0
      host_id: 1000
      size: 1
    - container_id: 1
      host_id: 100000
      size: 1000000
    uidmap:
    - container_id: 0
      host_id: 501
      size: 1
    - container_id: 1
      host_id: 100000
      size: 1000000
  kernel: 5.19.6-200.fc36.aarch64
  linkmode: dynamic
  logDriver: journald
  memFree: 72056832
  memTotal: 2051379200
  networkBackend: netavark
  ociRuntime:
    name: crun
    package: crun-1.5-1.fc36.aarch64
    path: /usr/bin/crun
    version: |-
      crun version 1.5
      commit: 54ebb8ca8bf7e6ddae2eb919f5b82d1d96863dea
      spec: 1.0.0
      +SYSTEMD +SELINUX +APPARMOR +CAP +SECCOMP +EBPF +CRIU +YAJL
  os: linux
  remoteSocket:
    exists: true
    path: /run/user/501/podman/podman.sock
  security:
    apparmorEnabled: false
    capabilities: CAP_CHOWN,CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE,CAP_FOWNER,CAP_FSETID,CAP_KILL,CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE,CAP_SETFCAP,CAP_SETGID,CAP_SETPCAP,CAP_SETUID,CAP_SYS_CHROOT
    rootless: true
    seccompEnabled: true
    seccompProfilePath: /usr/share/containers/seccomp.json
    selinuxEnabled: true
  serviceIsRemote: true
  slirp4netns:
    executable: /usr/bin/slirp4netns
    package: slirp4netns-1.2.0-0.2.beta.0.fc36.aarch64
    version: |-
      slirp4netns version 1.2.0-beta.0
      commit: 477db14a24ff1a3de3a705e51ca2c4c1fe3dda64
      libslirp: 4.6.1
      SLIRP_CONFIG_VERSION_MAX: 3
      libseccomp: 2.5.3
  swapFree: 0
  swapTotal: 0
  uptime: 0h 40m 2.00s
plugins:
  authorization: null
  log:
  - k8s-file
  - none
  - passthrough
  - journald
  network:
  - bridge
  - macvlan
  volume:
  - local
registries:
  search:
  - docker.io
store:
  configFile: /var/home/core/.config/containers/storage.conf
  containerStore:
    number: 3
    paused: 0
    running: 2
    stopped: 1
  graphDriverName: overlay
  graphOptions: {}
  graphRoot: /var/home/core/.local/share/containers/storage
  graphRootAllocated: 106825756672
  graphRootUsed: 3089256448
  graphStatus:
    Backing Filesystem: xfs
    Native Overlay Diff: "true"
    Supports d_type: "true"
    Using metacopy: "false"
  imageCopyTmpDir: /var/tmp
  imageStore:
    number: 9
  runRoot: /run/user/501/containers
  volumePath: /var/home/core/.local/share/containers/storage/volumes
version:
  APIVersion: 4.2.0
  Built: 1660228991
  BuiltTime: Thu Aug 11 16:43:11 2022
  GitCommit: ""
  GoVersion: go1.18.4
  Os: linux
  OsArch: linux/arm64
  Version: 4.2.0

Package info (e.g. output of rpm -q podman or apt list podman):

==> podman: stable 4.2.1 (bottled), HEAD
Tool for managing OCI containers and pods
https://podman.io/
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/podman/4.2.0 (178 files, 48MB) *
  Poured from bottle on 2022-09-01 at 11:18:27
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/HEAD/Formula/podman.rb
License: Apache-2.0
==> Dependencies
Build: go-md2man ✘, go@1.18 ✘
Required: qemu ✔
==> Options
--HEAD
	Install HEAD version
==> Caveats
zsh completions have been installed to:
  /opt/homebrew/share/zsh/site-functions
==> Analytics
install: 25,630 (30 days), 60,955 (90 days), 199,164 (365 days)
install-on-request: 24,936 (30 days), 59,912 (90 days), 197,997 (365 days)
build-error: 11 (30 days)

Have you tested with the latest version of Podman and have you checked the Podman Troubleshooting Guide? (https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md)

Yes

Additional environment details (AWS, VirtualBox, physical, etc.):
Macbook Pro 2022 M2

[vrothberg]

Thanks for reaching out, @fracado!

@giuseppe, any idea what could cause that?

[Luap99]

I don't think ionotify is currently supported with 9p or virtiofs.

[giuseppe]

that is a limitation in FUSE/virtiofs that doesn't support inotify.

I know @rhvgoyal was looking at it in the past, but I don't know what the current status is.

[fracado]

Is there a way to start the VM in a different way, to use another file system with inotify support?

[github-actions[bot]]

A friendly reminder that this issue had no activity for 30 days.

[rhatdan]

There is no remote file system support for Inotify. I guess you could share a block device from the host into the VM.
Sorry this go lost in the stale-issue tag.

Moving to a discussion.

[epicwhale]

Any solution to this? i.e having support for watchfiles behavior in various python apps work inside a podman container in Mac?

[jlost]

No attention, no solution? Seems like kind of a big deal?

[rhatdan]

No idea if this fixes the problem or not, but podman 5.0 supports appleHV and virtiofsd, with podman 4.* you can change to applehv inside of the containers.conf and try it out.

[kkkrist]

Unfortunately, the applehv provider and virtiofs doesn't make a difference (at least for me on podman 4.9.2).

In addition to that, I also get a "can't open <path/to/file>: Permission denied" error once I've changed a file on the host. Does anyone know how to fix that?

Bildschirmaufnahme.2024-03-07.um.09.45.58.mp4

[fmaerkl-sw]

For reference, colima/lima seems to support it like this: lima-vm/lima#1913