rootless buildah setfattr operation not supported

[llegolas]

Trying to use buildah from scratch on recent fedora 41 I've stumbled with a problem when truing to install packages with dnf.
DNF was failing with rpm unpacking errors which I've tracked down to rpm-plugin-ima. In short it seem overlay storage driver is not allowing setting extended file attributes. Here are the steps to reproduce:

$ buildah unshare
# ctr=$(buildah from scratch)
# mnt=$(buildah mount $ctr)
# echo $ctr $mnt
working-container /home/XXXXX/.local/share/containers/storage/overlay/1b35fea4a195206e1a34f93b6734bc2792c50dbf65aff93e378575286fa80b6e/merged
# dnf install --installroot $mnt --nodocs --releasever 41 --setopt=install_weak_deps=false coreutils bash --use-host-config -y
Updating and loading repositories:
 Fedora 41 - x86_64 - Updates                                                                                                                         100% |   2.3 MiB/s |   4.2 MiB |  00m02s
 Copr repo for libfprint-tod-goodix owned by manciukic                                                                                                100% |  14.1 KiB/s |   3.8 KiB |  00m00s
 Fedora 41 openh264 (From Cisco) - x86_64                                                                                                             100% |   2.9 KiB/s |   4.8 KiB |  00m02s
 Fedora 41 - x86_64                                                                                                                                   100% |   5.7 MiB/s |  35.4 MiB |  00m06s
 RPM Fusion for Fedora 41 - Free tainted                                                                                                              100% |  18.8 KiB/s |  13.1 KiB |  00m01s
 Microsoft Teams                                                                                                                                      100% |   5.5 KiB/s |   1.6 KiB |  00m00s
 RPM Fusion for Fedora 41 - Free - Updates                                                                                                            100% |  32.2 KiB/s |  18.0 KiB |  00m01s
 RPM Fusion for Fedora 41 - Free                                                                                                                      100% | 441.0 KiB/s | 170.2 KiB |  00m00s
 RPM Fusion for Fedora 41 - Nonfree tainted                                                                                                           100% |  18.2 KiB/s |  12.4 KiB |  00m01s
 slack                                                                                                                                                100% |   1.7 KiB/s |   4.5 KiB |  00m03s
 RPM Fusion for Fedora 41 - Nonfree - Updates                                                                                                         100% |  11.0 KiB/s |  17.2 KiB |  00m02s
 RPM Fusion for Fedora 41 - Nonfree                                                                                                                   100% | 104.1 KiB/s |  85.8 KiB |  00m01s
 teams                                                                                                                                                100% |  11.7 KiB/s |   1.6 KiB |  00m00s
 vscodium                                                                                                                                             100% |  18.6 KiB/s |   3.8 KiB |  00m00s
>>> Librepo error: repomd.xml GPG signature verification error: Signing key not found
 https://gitlab.com/paulcarroty/vscodium-deb-rpm-repo/-/raw/master/pub.gpg                                                                            100% |  11.3 KiB/s |   3.1 KiB |  00m00sImporting PGP key 0x5A278D9C:
 UserID     : "Pavlo Rudyi <paulcarroty@riseup.net>"
 Fingerprint: 1302DE60231889FE1EBACADC54678CF75A278D9C
 From       : https://gitlab.com/paulcarroty/vscodium-deb-rpm-repo/-/raw/master/pub.gpg
The key was successfully imported.

 vscodium                                                                                                                                             100% |  19.5 KiB/s |   6.1 KiB |  00m00s
Repositories loaded.
Package                                                          Arch           Version                                                          Repository                               Size
Installing:
 bash                                                            x86_64         5.2.32-1.fc41                                                    fedora                                8.2 MiB
 coreutils                                                       x86_64         9.5-10.fc41                                                      fedora                                5.6 MiB
Installing dependencies:
 alternatives                                                    x86_64         1.30-1.fc41                                                      fedora                               66.3 KiB
 ...
 ...
 zlib-ng-compat                                                  x86_64         2.1.7-3.fc41                                                     fedora                              134.0 KiB

Transaction Summary:
 Installing:        40 packages

Total size of inbound packages is 16 MiB. Need to download 16 MiB.
After this operation, 54 MiB extra will be used (install 54 MiB, remove 0 B).
^CFailed to download packages
 Librepo error: Interrupted by a SIGINT signal
 # dnf install --installroot $mnt --nodocs --releasever 41 --setopt=install_weak_deps=false coreutils bash --use-host-config -y
Updating and loading repositories:
Repositories loaded.
Package                                                          Arch           Version                                                          Repository                               Size
Installing:
 bash                                                            x86_64         5.2.32-1.fc41                                                    fedora                                8.2 MiB
 coreutils                                                       x86_64         9.5-10.fc41                                                      fedora                                5.6 MiB
...
...

Transaction Summary:
 Installing:        40 packages

Total size of inbound packages is 16 MiB. Need to download 16 MiB.
After this operation, 54 MiB extra will be used (install 54 MiB, remove 0 B).
[ 1/40] gmp-1:6.3.0-2.fc41.x86_64                                                                                                                     100% |   3.8 MiB/s | 318.0 KiB |  00m00s
...
...
[40/40] p11-kit-trust-0:0.25.5-3.fc41.x86_64                                                                                                          100% | 444.9 KiB/s | 132.1 KiB |  00m00s
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[40/40] Total                                                                                                                                         100% |   4.8 MiB/s |  15.9 MiB |  00m03s
Running transaction
Importing PGP key 0xE99D6AD1:
 UserID     : "Fedora (41) <fedora-41-primary@fedoraproject.org>"
 Fingerprint: 466CF2D8B60BC3057AA9453ED0622462E99D6AD1
 From       : file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-41-x86_64
The key was successfully imported.
[ 1/42] Verify package files                                                                                                                          100% | 232.0   B/s |  40.0   B |  00m00s
[ 2/42] Prepare transaction                                                                                                                           100% | 975.0   B/s |  40.0   B |  00m00s
[ 3/42] Installing libgcc-0:14.2.1-3.fc41.x86_64                                                                                                      100% |  20.8 MiB/s | 276.3 KiB |  00m00s
>>> Unpack error: libgcc-0:14.2.1-3.fc41.x86_64
[ 1/42] Installing fedora-release-identity-basic-0:41-27.noarch                                                                                       100% |   0.0   B/s | 940.0   B |  00m00s
>>> Unpack error: fedora-release-identity-basic-0:41-27.noarch
[ 1/42] Installing fedora-gpg-keys-0:41-1.noarch                                                                                                      100% |  24.0 MiB/s | 172.2 KiB |  00m00s
>>> Unpack error: fedora-gpg-keys-0:41-1.noarch
[ 1/42] Installing fedora-repos-0:41-1.noarch                                                                                                         100% |   2.8 MiB/s |   5.7 KiB |  00m00s
[ 2/42] Installing fedora-release-common-0:41-27.noarch                                                                                               100% |   7.8 MiB/s |  23.9 KiB |  00m00s
>>> Unpack error: fedora-release-common-0:41-27.noarch
...
...
[ 1/42] Installing coreutils-0:9.5-10.fc41.x86_64                                                                                                     100% | 808.7 MiB/s |   5.7 MiB |  00m00s
>>> Unpack error: coreutils-0:9.5-10.fc41.x86_64

Transaction failed: Rpm transaction failed.

trying to use rpm directly spat out the ima related rpm error

pm -iv --root $mnt  $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/updates-e19adde8fd271134/packages/glibc-2.40-9.fc41.x86_64.rpm $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/updates-e19adde8fd271134/packages/glibc-common-2.40-9.fc41.x86_64.rpm $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/fedora-7efbab3c1dbcd0d4/packages/bash-5.2.32-1.fc41.x86_64.rpm $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/fedora-7efbab3c1dbcd0d4/packages/ncurses-libs-6.5-2.20240629.fc41.x86_64.rpm $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/fedora-7efbab3c1dbcd0d4/packages/ncurses-base-6.5-2.20240629.fc41.noarch.rpm $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/fedora-7efbab3c1dbcd0d4/packages/libgcc-14.2.1-3.fc41.x86_64.rpm 
Verifying packages...
warning: Unable to get systemd shutdown inhibition lock: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
Preparing packages...
libgcc-14.2.1-3.fc41.x86_64
error: ima: could not apply signature on '/lib64/libgcc_s-14-20240912.so.1;672e8d8f': Operation not permitted
error: Plugin ima: hook fsm_file_prepare failed
error: unpacking of archive failed on file /lib64/libgcc_s-14-20240912.so.1;672e8d8f: cpio: (error 0x2)
error: libgcc-14.2.1-3.fc41.x86_64: install failed
ncurses-base-6.5-2.20240629.fc41.noarch
error: ima: could not apply signature on '/usr/share/doc/ncurses-base/README;672e8d8f': Operation not permitted
error: Plugin ima: hook fsm_file_prepare failed
error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/share/doc/ncurses-base/README;672e8d8f: cpio: (error 0x2)
error: ncurses-base-6.5-2.20240629.fc41.noarch: install failed
glibc-common-2.40-9.fc41.x86_64
error: ima: could not apply signature on '/usr/bin/gencat;672e8d8f': Operation not permitted
error: Plugin ima: hook fsm_file_prepare failed
error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/bin/gencat;672e8d8f: cpio: (error 0x2)
error: glibc-common-2.40-9.fc41.x86_64: install failed
glibc-2.40-9.fc41.x86_64
error: ima: could not apply signature on '/usr/lib64/audit/sotruss-lib.so;672e8d8f': Operation not permitted
error: Plugin ima: hook fsm_file_prepare failed
error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/lib64/audit/sotruss-lib.so;672e8d8f: cpio: (error 0x2)
error: glibc-2.40-9.fc41.x86_64: install failed
ncurses-libs-6.5-2.20240629.fc41.x86_64
error: ima: could not apply signature on '/usr/lib64/libform.so.6.5;672e8d8f': Operation not permitted
error: Plugin ima: hook fsm_file_prepare failed
error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/lib64/libform.so.6.5;672e8d8f: cpio: (error 0x2)
error: ncurses-libs-6.5-2.20240629.fc41.x86_64: install failed
bash-5.2.32-1.fc41.x86_64
error: ima: could not apply signature on '/usr/bin/alias;672e8d8f': Operation not permitted
error: Plugin ima: hook fsm_file_prepare failed
error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/bin/alias;672e8d8f: cpio: (error 0x2)
error: bash-5.2.32-1.fc41.x86_64: install failed

which I was able to workaround by adding --undefine=__transaction_ima to rpm command

rpm -iv --undefine=__transaction_ima --root $mnt  $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/updates-e19adde8fd271134/packages/glibc-2.40-9.fc41.x86_64.rpm $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/updates-e19adde8fd271134/packages/glibc-common-2.40-9.fc41.x86_64.rpm $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/fedora-7efbab3c1dbcd0d4/packages/bash-5.2.32-1.fc41.x86_64.rpm $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/fedora-7efbab3c1dbcd0d4/packages/ncurses-libs-6.5-2.20240629.fc41.x86_64.rpm $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/fedora-7efbab3c1dbcd0d4/packages/ncurses-base-6.5-2.20240629.fc41.noarch.rpm $mnt/var/cache/libdnf5/fedora-7efbab3c1dbcd0d4/packages/libgcc-14.2.1-3.fc41.x86_64.rpm
Verifying packages...
warning: Unable to get systemd shutdown inhibition lock: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
Preparing packages...
libgcc-14.2.1-3.fc41.x86_64
ncurses-base-6.5-2.20240629.fc41.noarch
glibc-common-2.40-9.fc41.x86_64
glibc-2.40-9.fc41.x86_64
ncurses-libs-6.5-2.20240629.fc41.x86_64
bash-5.2.32-1.fc41.x86_64

I vaguely remember similar problem years ago but it was related to selinux (it stores its labels as xattrs if my memory serves me right too) and I was able to workaround it with dnf .... --setopt tsflags=nocontexts ..... unfortunately there is no tsflag for rpm-ima.

I can provide more info about the system if need be.

[llegolas]

I find this 5e82f27 which seem to try to fix exactly what i observe.
my buildah version is:

$ buildah --version
buildah version 1.37.5 (image-spec 1.1.0, runtime-spec 1.2.0)

so I run the latest release.
@mheon Any ideas ?