Can't delete container

General
1

I can’t get distrobox rm to delete a container:

❯ distrobox ls
ID           | NAME                 | STATUS             | IMAGE                         
992a366e5e06 | tst                  | Exited (1) 5 minutes ago | docker.io/library/clearlinux:latest

~ 
❯ distrobox rm -f tst
Removing exported binaries...

~ 
❯ distrobox ls
ID           | NAME                 | STATUS             | IMAGE                         
992a366e5e06 | tst                  | Exited (1) 2 seconds ago | docker.io/library/clearlinux:latest

I am not sure what the problem is. I can create other containers and remove them:

❯ distrobox create --name other --image debian:latest
Resolved "debian" as an alias (/etc/containers/registries.conf.d/000-shortnames.conf)
Trying to pull docker.io/library/debian:latest...
Getting image source signatures
Copying blob 609c73876867 done   | 
Copying config e15dbfac2d done   | 
Writing manifest to image destination
e15dbfac2d2b38406db17278673b8d905785386f916a843887115566d7a9d97a
Creating 'other' using image debian:latest	 [ OK ]
Distrobox 'other' successfully created.
To enter, run:

distrobox enter other


~ took 4s 
❯ distrobox ls
ID           | NAME                 | STATUS             | IMAGE                         
992a366e5e06 | tst                  | Exited (1) About a minute ago | docker.io/library/clearlinux:latest
5d24f0977054 | other                | Created            | docker.io/library/debian:latest

~ 
❯ distrobox rm -f other
Removing exported binaries...
Removing container...
other

~ took 52s 
❯ distrobox ls
ID           | NAME                 | STATUS             | IMAGE                         
992a366e5e06 | tst                  | Exited (1) 40 seconds ago | docker.io/library/clearlinux:latest

But this particular one (whose creation I interrupted with Ctrl-C) seems to have gone into some weird state. It simply won’t go away…

I also can’t enter the container:

❯ distrobox enter tst
Starting container...                   	 [ OK ]
Installing basic packages...            	 [ OK ]
Setting up devpts mounts...             	 [ OK ]
Setting up read-only mounts...          	 [ OK ]
Setting up read-write mounts...         	 [ OK ]
Setting up host's sockets integration...	 [ OK ]
Integrating host's themes, icons, fonts...	 [ OK ]
Setting up package manager exceptions...	 [ OK ]
Setting up distrobox profile...         	 [ OK ]
Setting up sudo...                      	 [ OK ]
Setting up user groups...               	 [ OK ]
Setting up kerberos integration...      	 [ OK ]
Setting up user's group list...         	 [ OK ]
Setting up existing user...             	 [ OK ]
Setting up existing user: /etc/passwd...	 [ OK ]
Setting up existing user: /etc/group... 	 Error: An error occurred

Any idea how to nuke this?

2

Can you try to delete the container with podman instead?

If you don’t mind destroying all your containers: rm -rf ~/.local/share/containers/

3

Thank you, this has worked.

The problem is that I immediately tried to recreate another clear linux box (from docker.io/library/clearlinux, tried both base and latest) and got into the same situation for both. Can’t delete them, have to nuke the entire folder!

I was still able to create (and then remove) others, like fedora:39 and debian:12 without issue.

It is not comforting to know that you could get stuck with an invalid container (especially if you have actual images).

I wonder why clear linux in particular does not work…

4

Interesting!
Have you tried creating the container by specifying the same OS image from the cloud with docker or podman (via terminal)? I am suspecting that the images linked could be corrupted.