Tag: runroot

Change the location of container storage in podman (with SELinux enabled)

There two main options to change the location of all the containers’ storages:

  • “mount bind” the new location to the default storage directory (look Note 1)
  • Change the path of the location in the configuration file /etc/containers/storage.conf

You should stop all your containers though it is not mandatory.

You should stop the containers (if any) and copy the directory, because when reconfigured the storage path podman won’t access the ones in the old path – containers and images!

STEP 1) Change the storage path in the podman configuration file.

If the SELinux has been disabled, which should not be done, it is just a matter of changing a path option in the configuration file /etc/containers/storage.conf

# Primary Read/Write location of container storage
graphroot = "/var/lib/containers/storage"

Change it to whatever path you like. Mostly, it should point to the big storage device. In our case, the big storage is mounted under “/mnt/mystorage/virtual/storage”. Change the options to:

# Primary Read/Write location of container storage
graphroot = "/mnt/mystorage/virtual/storage"

Check the running configuration with:

[root@lsrv1 mystorage]# podman info
host:
  BuildahVersion: 1.12.0-dev
  CgroupVersion: v1
  Conmon:
    package: conmon-2.0.8-1.el7.x86_64
    path: /usr/bin/conmon
    version: 'conmon version 2.0.8, commit: f85c8b1ce77b73bcd48b2d802396321217008762'
  Distribution:
    distribution: '"centos"'
    version: "7"
  MemFree: 191963136
  MemTotal: 16563531776
  OCIRuntime:
    name: runc
    package: runc-1.0.0-67.rc10.el7_8.x86_64
    path: /usr/bin/runc
    version: 'runc version spec: 1.0.1-dev'
  SwapFree: 7857680384
  SwapTotal: 8581541888
  arch: amd64
  cpus: 8
  eventlogger: journald
  hostname: lsrv1
  kernel: 3.10.0-1062.9.1.el7.x86_64
  os: linux
  rootless: false
  uptime: 607h 10m 53.36s (Approximately 25.29 days)
registries:
  blocked: null
  insecure: null
  search:
  - registry.access.redhat.com
  - registry.fedoraproject.org
  - registry.centos.org
  - docker.io
store:
  ConfigFile: /etc/containers/storage.conf
  ContainerStore:
    number: 0
  GraphDriverName: overlay
  GraphOptions: {}
  GraphRoot: /mnt/mystorage/virtual/storage
  GraphStatus:
    Backing Filesystem: extfs
    Native Overlay Diff: "true"
    Supports d_type: "true"
    Using metacopy: "false"
  ImageStore:
    number: 0
  RunRoot: /var/run/containers/storage
  VolumePath: /mnt/mystorage/virtual/storage/volumes

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