[Discussion] containers+systemd : usage of podman quadlet

[frotinybo]

Hello,

This post is to discuss how I used podman quadlet to setup the container+systemd support of invidious.

I first integrated invidious through its container form. The docker-file/docker-compose material provided within the project is great and allowed a quite straight forward integration.

Next step was to fully integrate the service within my host, meaning:

• starting/stopping the containers at boot/halt of the host.
• regularly restarting the invidious container as mentioned in the documentation (memory leaks).

My container ecosystem being Podman, I decided to use a quite new tool for running Podman containers under systemd: quadlet. With quadlet, you describe how to run a container in a format that is very similar to regular systemd unit files. Resulting service files are then crunched by systemd as any other service files. I also used an intermediate tool named podlet. Podlet automatically generates quadlet files from different inputs, including a docker-compose file.

Transformation :
(podman-compose + invidious docker compose file) → (systemd + quadlet files)
using podlet to generate the output quadlet data from the input invidious docker compose file.

The transformation needed some small troubleshooting:

Podlet preprocessing:

Docker/podman compose performs some hidden tricks that are not straight forward translated in “the quadlet world”. Concerning invidious, I had to investigate network related problems , solved by modifying the input compose file :

• to explicit the internal network between the two containers (invidious and invidious-db).
• to explicit the invidious-db container hostname (used by the invidious container to connect to the db).

invidious docker-compose.yml :

services:
...
invidious:
...
networks:
- invidious-net
…

invidious-db:
…
hostname: invidious-db
networks:
- invidious-net
...

networks:
invidious-net:

Podlet processing (tool version 0.2.2)

“mkdir podletdir”
“podlet --overwrite --file podletdir --install compose docker-compose.yml”

This generates 3 files, one for each container (invidious, invidious-db) plus one for the network, files directly understood by systemd (but a “systemctl reload”) when placed under $HOME/.config/containers/systemd/ (podman rootless use case).

Podlet postprocessing:

I instructed systemd to stop the invidious container every hour by editing the invidious container quadlet file.

invidious.container quadlet file :

[Service]
Restart=always
RuntimeMaxSec=3600

Doing so, systemd will stop the container every hour and because of the existing Restart=always directive, systemd will restart the service as soon as it it stopped = effective restart of the container every hour.

Et voila. I now have a invidious service supported by an effective container+systemd combo.

Thanks to the invidious authors and contributors. This project is awesome.

[unixfox]

If you don't want this to get lost into the github issues, you should contribute to the community installation guide here: https://github.com/iv-org/documentation/blob/master/docs/community-installation-guide.md

There is already a guide for podman. Make sure to keep a good structure.

[daniilgoss]

@frotinybo Greetings! I've been trying to achieve the same setup (Invidious + Quadlet). Would you kindly share your configuration files so we can understand how to structure/replicate in our environments? Thank you in advance!