[pkg-go] Bug#1121681: Future podman metadata backend deprecation/migration (nag message)

[Jan Binder]

Package: podman
Version: 5.7.0+ds2-2
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

on older installs that use the boltdb metadata backend, podman outputs a nag
message about
migrating to the sqlite metadata backend:

WARN[0000] The deprecated BoltDB database driver is in use. This driver will be
removed in the upcoming Podman 6.0 release in mid 2026. It is advised that you
migrate to SQLite to avoid issues when this occurs. Set SUPPRESS_BOLTDB_WARNING
environment variable to remove this message.

When researching how to go about such a migration, I was surprised that no
actual migration method
seems to exist short of deleting everything and starting from scratch [1].

That is very unsatisfactory for users with lots of containers that use volumes
that are not explicitly bound to
an existing file system location.

Upstream does not really consider this to be their problem [1,2].

[1] https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/podman-5-7-boltdb-to-sqlite-
migration/171172
[2] https://github.com/containers/podman/issues/27628


-- System Information:
Debian Release: forky/sid
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 6.17.8+deb14-amd64 (SMP w/16 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages podman depends on:
ii  conmon                           2.1.13+ds1-2
ii  crun                             1.21-3
ii  golang-github-containers-common  0.66.0+ds2-3
ii  init-system-helpers              1.69
ii  libc6                            2.41-12
ii  libgpgme45                       2.0.1-2
ii  libseccomp2                      2.6.0-2
ii  libsqlite3-0                     3.46.1-8
ii  libsubid5                        1:4.18.0-2
ii  netavark                         1.16.1-3.1

Versions of packages podman recommends:
ii  buildah             1.42.1+ds1-2
ii  ca-certificates     20250419
ii  catatonit           0.2.1-2+b3
ii  containers-storage  1.61.0+ds1-4
ii  criu                4.2-1
ii  dbus-user-session   1.16.2-2
ii  libcriu2            4.2-1
ii  passt               0.0~git20250919.623dbf6-1
ii  slirp4netns         1.3.3-1
ii  uidmap              1:4.18.0-2

Versions of packages podman suggests:
ii  containernetworking-plugins  1.1.1+ds1-3+b18
ii  docker-compose               2.32.4-3
ii  iptables                     1.8.11-3

-- no debconf information