[COMMITTED] Add README_containers - Debugging issues with CI container files

[COMMITTED] Add README_containers - Debugging issues with CI container files

[Mark Wielaard]

A quick reference on how to debug issues inside the container files.

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+Debugging issues with CI container files
+----------------------------------------
+
+TL;DR;
+
+- Setup podman (or docker)
+- git clone https://sourceware.org/git/builder.git
+- cd builder
+- podman build -t builder-debian-stable \
+               -f builder/containers/Containerfile-debian-stable \
+               builder/containers
+- podman run --name debian-stable -ti --entrypoint /bin/bash \
+         builder-debian-stable
+
+Full intructions below.
+
+Some CI builders on https://builder.sourceware.org/ will use container
+files to run builds and tests. When the logs don't make clear how/why
+a test fails and local debugging doesn't help it is useful to be able
+to recreate the container environment locally.
+
+We will assume an x86_64 GNU/Linux install with docker or podman and
+user namespaces support. The none-x86_64 hosts on
+https://builder.sourceware.org/ don't use container files and you can
+contact buildbot@sourceware.org to get access if debugging locally
+isn't possible.
+
+The container files
+-------------------
+
+The container files can be found in builder.git together with the
+buildbot configuration:
+
+git clone https://sourceware.org/git/builder.git
+cd builder
+ls builder/containers
+
+Containerfile-debian-stable  Containerfile-opensuse-leap
+Containerfile-fedora-latest  Containerfile-opensuse-tumbleweed
+
+Setting up docker or podman
+---------------------------
+
+- Make sure that you have docker installed and that the user is in the
+  docker group
+
+sudo apt install docker.io or sudo dnf install moby-engine
+sudo systemctl enable docker.service
+sudo systemctl start docker.service
+sudo usermod -a -G docker $(whoami)
+
+- Or make sure to have podman and user namespaces setup
+
+sudo apt install podman slirp4netns fuse-overlayfs
+or
+sudo dnf install podman slirp4netns fuse-overlayfs
+
+Make sure cat /proc/sys/user/max_user_namespaces is >= 15000:
+if not, sudo sysctl user.max_user_namespaces=15000
+or set it in /etc/sysctl.conf
+
+Make sure that /etc/subuid and /etc/subgid are setup for your user,
+both should contain something like: youruser:100000:65536
+if not,
+sudo usermod --add-subuids 100000-165535 \
+             --add-subgids 100000-165535 $(whoami)
+
+Building the image
+------------------
+
+Note that the container files are rebuild once a week for the
+builder.sourceware.org workers. So although unlikely it might be that
+a freshly build container contains slightly newer versions of the
+packages than the one that ran on the builder.sourceware.org worker.
+
+The containers contain all build dependencies for all projects
+including for generating the documentation. So they are similar in
+size to a full distribution. Make sure you have several GB available
+in /var/lib/docker for docker or in $HOME/.local/share/containers and
+/var/tmp for podman
+
+git clone https://sourceware.org/git/builder.git
+cd builder
+podman build -t builder-debian-stable \
+             -f builder/containers/Containerfile-debian-stable \
+             builder/containers
+
+Or use docker instead of podman, they take the same arguments
+(although the last PATH is optional in some versions).
+
+Running the image
+-----------------
+
+The image is setup for running the buildbot-worker as user builder. To
+use it interactively we'll have to override the entrypoint with
+/bin/bash.
+
+podman run --name debian-stable -ti --entrypoint /bin/bash \
+       builder-debian-stable
+
+To reuse the same container run (with interactive attach):
+
+podman start -ai debian-stable
+
+The container has all the packages needed for building the projects,
+including git. But if you find some package is missing start the
+container and enter it as root:
+
+podman start debian-stable
+podman exec -it --user root debian-stable apt install emacs
+
+The same works with the docker command.
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2.18.4