[pkg-go] Bug#1066139: podman: Cannot create a network with dns_enabled

[Faidon Liambotis]

Control: tags -1 + moreinfo

On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 12:17:12AM +0100, Antoine Sirinelli wrote:
> When I create a new custom network, the dns is not enabled:
> 
> $ podman network create test
> test
> $ podman network inspect test
>
> [...]
> 
> The outcome should have "dns_enabled" to true.

Per podman-network(1):
> Podman supports two network backends Netavark and CNI. Netavark is the
> default network backend and was added in Podman version 4.0. CNI  is
> deprecated and will be removed in the next major Podman version 5.0,
> in preference of Netavark.

For DNS, you need to have installed:
  - golang-github-containernetworking-plugin-dnsname (CNI, deprecated)
  - aardvark-dns (Netavark)

podman Depends on golang-github-containers-common which Recommends
netavark, which Recommends aardvark-dns, so a clean install brings in
Netavark by default (per upstream).

I've verified that clean installs, with the exact commands you executed,
with either Netavark (default install), or without Netavark but with
golang-github-containernetworking-plugin-dnsname, and could not
reproduce the issue.

So I would guess that you don't have either of those packages installed.

The question is why.

1) Perhaps you installed podman with apt install --no-install-recommends?

   In this case, I don't think this is a bug. Recommends is the
   appropriate package relationship here, and failure to install all the
   recommended dependencies can result in reduced, non-essential
   functionality.

2) Alternatively, perhaps you first set up podman without Netavark (e.g.
   before 4.0), and later upgraded to a newer version?

   (In this case, I wonder how the setup ended up without the "dnsname"
   plugin. But moot at this point regardless)

   I don't think an automatic transition from the old stack to the new
   stack exists. A "podman system reset" should fix it; I'm not sure if
   there is a less intrusive way to do that. Perhaps we'll know more
   about upgrade paths with the 5.0 release, which is imminent.

3) Some other reason that I can't imagine right now :)

Would love to hear from you and some insight on how your setup ended up
in the way it did. Perhaps we could figure out ways to avoid any further
surprises.

Best,
Faidon