Consider using pq for managing your quadlet installations

[rgolangh]

Hey @dwedia,

Can you consider giving https://github.com/rgolangh/pq a test as a tool to help you install and manage quadlet installations?
Repos like yours is exactly what I had in mind when creating it.
I'm also working on contributing that functionality to podman itself and your feedback would be valuable.

Thanks

[dwedia]

Hey @dwedia,

Can you consider giving https://github.com/rgolangh/pq a test as a tool to help you install and manage quadlet installations? Repos like yours is exactly what I had in mind when creating it. I'm also working on contributing that functionality to podman itself and your feedback would be valuable.

Thanks

It looks very interesting.
I must say, I am not very well versed in Go.
How do I install this. The Readme seems to only list how it is used when installed, but not how to install it.

[dwedia]

Hey @dwedia,
Can you consider giving https://github.com/rgolangh/pq a test as a tool to help you install and manage quadlet installations? Repos like yours is exactly what I had in mind when creating it. I'm also working on contributing that functionality to podman itself and your feedback would be valuable.
Thanks

It looks very interesting. I must say, I am not very well versed in Go. How do I install this. The Readme seems to only list how it is used when installed, but not how to install it.

I poked at it a bit more, and it seems to require golang installed to build and run

$ make build
/bin/bash: line 1: go: command not found
formatted=""
test -z "$formatted"
go vet ./...
/bin/bash: line 1: go: command not found
make: *** [Makefile:46: vet] Error 127

I installed golang in a distrobox (i run an immutable OS), and was able to run make build.

[dwedia]

@rgolangh

When I run pq to install one of my podman quadlets, it fails.
The reason it fails, is because I create my Quadlets with fixed paths. Podman Quadlet in itself is not able to create these folders on its own either. Unlike with podman-compose, the paths needs to exist in advance or the containers can't start.

This is an inherent problem with Podman Quadlets.
It would be a nice userfriendly addition, to have the PQ error output state why it failed, instead of just ERROR: Failed to start service uptimeKuma.service with error: exit status 1

But other than that, it looks quite interresting.

PQ log:

[ramiraz@thor pq]$ pq --repo https://github.com/dwedia/podmanQuadlets install uptimeKuma -vDEBUG: install called with args [uptimeKuma]
Installing quadlet "uptimeKuma"
DEBUG: tmp dir name /tmp/pq1472736603
DEBUG: cloning repo
DEBUG: copying from /tmp/pq1472736603/uptimeKuma to /home/ramiraz/.config/containers/systemd/uptimeKuma
DEBUG: copying file from /tmp/pq1472736603/uptimeKuma/uptimeKuma.container to /home/ramiraz/.config/containers/systemd/uptimeKuma/uptimeKuma.container
Reload systemd daemon?[y/N]y
Reloading systemd daemon for the current user
DEBUG: []
DEBUG: about to walk the install dir /home/ramiraz/.config/containers/systemd
DEBUG: dirEntry uptimeKuma
DEBUG: quadlet file uptimeKuma.container
DEBUG: some other file
DEBUG: ini file loaded &{options:{Loose:false Insensitive:false InsensitiveSections:false InsensitiveKeys:false IgnoreContinuation:false IgnoreInlineComment:false SkipUnrecognizableLines:false ShortCircuit:false AllowBooleanKeys:false AllowShadows:false AllowNestedValues:false AllowPythonMultilineValues:false SpaceBeforeInlineComment:false UnescapeValueDoubleQuotes:false UnescapeValueCommentSymbols:false UnparseableSections:[] KeyValueDelimiters:=: KeyValueDelimiterOnWrite:= ChildSectionDelimiter:. PreserveSurroundedQuote:false DebugFunc:<nil> ReaderBufferSize:0 AllowNonUniqueSections:false AllowDuplicateShadowValues:false} dataSources:[{name:/home/ramiraz/.config/containers/systemd/uptimeKuma/uptimeKuma.container}] BlockMode:true lock:{w:{state:0 sema:0} writerSem:0 readerSem:0 readerCount:{_:{} v:0} readerWait:{_:{} v:0}} sectionList:[DEFAULT Unit Container Service Install] sectionIndexes:[0 0 0 0 0] sections:map[Container:[0xc0000fe2a0] DEFAULT:[0xc0000fe000] Install:[0xc0000fe700] Service:[0xc0000fe540] Unit:[0xc0000fe1c0]] NameMapper:<nil> ValueMapper:<nil>}
DEBUG: quadlet file {Unit:{Description:uptimeKuma Quadlet Requires: Requisite: Wants: BindsTo: PartOf: Conflicts: Before: OnFailure: After:} Container:{Image:docker.io/louislam/uptime-kuma:latest ContainerName:uptimeKuma-Quadlet Exec: Network: PublishPort:3001:3001 Volume:/opt/podmnts/uptimeKuma/data:/app/data:Z} FileName:/home/ramiraz/.config/containers/systemd/uptimeKuma/uptimeKuma.container}
DEBUG: converted quadlet file {Unit:{Description:uptimeKuma Quadlet Requires: Requisite: Wants: BindsTo: PartOf: Conflicts: Before: OnFailure: After:} Container:{Image:docker.io/louislam/uptime-kuma:latest ContainerName:uptimeKuma-Quadlet Exec: Network: PublishPort:3001:3001 Volume:/opt/podmnts/uptimeKuma/data:/app/data:Z} FileName:/home/ramiraz/.config/containers/systemd/uptimeKuma/uptimeKuma.container}
DEBUG: dirEntry uptimeKuma.container
Starting service uptimeKuma.service for current user
ERROR: Failed to start service uptimeKuma.service with error: exit status 1
Error: exit status 1
Usage:
  pq install [flags]

Flags:
      --dry-run                    Don't install, just output the generated quadlet for dubugging
  -h, --help                       help for install
      --no-systemd-daemon-reload   No systemd daemon reloading after installing. Useful for controlling when to reload the deamon
  -r, --repo string                The repo url (currently only git support), where the quadlets are stored (default "https://github.com/rgolangh/podman-quadlets")

Global Flags:
      --config string   config file (default is $HOME/.pq.yaml)
  -v, --verbose         verbose output

Error: exit status 1

Relevant SystemD log:

Feb 16 10:57:23 thor systemd[2553]: Starting uptimeKuma.service - uptimeKuma Quadlet...
Feb 16 10:57:23 thor uptimeKuma[16405]: Error: statfs /opt/podmnts/uptimeKuma/data: no such file or directory
Feb 16 10:57:23 thor podman[16405]: 2025-02-16 10:57:23.856697592 +0100 CET m=+0.020283105 image pull 542ef8cfcae209bef49dfe85d9e8aa92fbbd5fc83187fe6b695f08a661c691be docker.io/louislam/upti>
Feb 16 10:57:23 thor systemd[2553]: uptimeKuma.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=125/n/a
Feb 16 10:57:23 thor systemd[2553]: uptimeKuma.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 16 10:57:23 thor systemd[2553]: Failed to start uptimeKuma.service - uptimeKuma Quadlet.

[rgolangh]

You are absolutely right, there is nothing in the README that helps with installation, I'll fix that.
Meanwhile you can download from the releases page the latest compiled one, for your architecture - https://github.com/rgolangh/pq/releases/tag/v0.0.4

I'll also look into bubbling the error up. I hope I'll be able to get strong correlation with the installation call, perhaps just the error of systemctl start of status.

[rgolangh]

Regarding the path not exists problem - if you use a volume and not a path then podman will create that for you. Check out this volume file usage - https://github.com/rgolangh/podman-quadlets/tree/main/postgresql

[dwedia]

Regarding the path not exists problem - if you use a volume and not a path then podman will create that for you. Check out this volume file usage - https://github.com/rgolangh/podman-quadlets/tree/main/postgresql

Thank you.
I havent really tried out named volumes for podman yet. I have stuck with defining a path for the podman volume. relying on named volumes felt like a loss of control.
Perhaps I need to reevaluate that train of thought, if it means I can have podman create the volumes for me instead.
I just tested a bit with my uptimeKuma quadlet, and its just a different way of thinking about where my data is...

[rgolangh]

I experimented with a oneshot service and it seems it can work. Consider this postgres-init.container file in the quadlet dir:

[Service]
Type=oneshot
# setup postgresql data dir before starting
Exec=-mkdir -p %S/postgresql/data

[Container]
Image=docker.io/alpine

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target