Installer failure on Fedora 42 atomic

danderson commented

2025-04-19 16:53:59 +00:00

Error

Error: 
   0: Install failure
   1: Error executing action
   2: Action `start_systemd_unit` errored
   3: Failed to execute command with status 1 `"systemctl" "start" "nix.mount"`, stdout: 
      stderr: A dependency job for nix.mount failed. See 'journalctl -xe' for details.

Metadata

key	value
version	0.17.1
os	linux
arch	x86_64

Details

nix.mount fails to start because its dependency, nix-directory.service, fails:

Apr 19 09:49:41 orion systemd[1]: Starting nix-directory.service - Enable mount points in / for ostree...
Apr 19 09:49:41 orion chattr[7494]: chattr: Operation not supported while reading flags on /
Apr 19 09:49:41 orion systemd[1]: nix-directory.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Apr 19 09:49:41 orion chattr[7495]: chattr: Operation not supported while reading flags on /
Apr 19 09:49:41 orion systemd[1]: nix-directory.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Apr 19 09:49:41 orion systemd[1]: nix-directory.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Apr 19 09:49:41 orion systemd[1]: Failed to start nix-directory.service - Enable mount points in / for ostree.

Possible cause

I believe the atomic Fedora distros switched to using composefs as the root FS in v42:

composefs on / type overlay (ro,relatime,seclabel,lowerdir+=/run/ostree/.private/cfsroot-lower,datadir+=/sysroot/ostree/repo/objects,redirect_dir=on,metacopy=on)

Seems like composefs as root is incompatible with how the lix installer tries to materialize the /nix directory. Off the top of my head I'm not sure how to address this, the atomic distros are in general moving to making / more and more immutable.

## Error ``` Error: 0: Install failure 1: Error executing action 2: Action `start_systemd_unit` errored 3: Failed to execute command with status 1 `"systemctl" "start" "nix.mount"`, stdout: stderr: A dependency job for nix.mount failed. See 'journalctl -xe' for details. ``` ## Metadata |key|value| |--|--| |**version**|0.17.1| |**os**|linux| |**arch**|x86_64| ## Details nix.mount fails to start because its dependency, nix-directory.service, fails: ``` Apr 19 09:49:41 orion systemd[1]: Starting nix-directory.service - Enable mount points in / for ostree... Apr 19 09:49:41 orion chattr[7494]: chattr: Operation not supported while reading flags on / Apr 19 09:49:41 orion systemd[1]: nix-directory.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE Apr 19 09:49:41 orion chattr[7495]: chattr: Operation not supported while reading flags on / Apr 19 09:49:41 orion systemd[1]: nix-directory.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE Apr 19 09:49:41 orion systemd[1]: nix-directory.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'. Apr 19 09:49:41 orion systemd[1]: Failed to start nix-directory.service - Enable mount points in / for ostree. ``` ## Possible cause I believe the atomic Fedora distros switched to using composefs as the root FS in v42: ``` composefs on / type overlay (ro,relatime,seclabel,lowerdir+=/run/ostree/.private/cfsroot-lower,datadir+=/sysroot/ostree/repo/objects,redirect_dir=on,metacopy=on) ``` Seems like composefs as root is incompatible with how the lix installer tries to materialize the /nix directory. Off the top of my head I'm not sure how to address this, the atomic distros are in general moving to making / more and more immutable.

danderson commented

2025-04-19 17:06:15 +00:00

Author

Related issue on the other project, in which not much progress happens aside from teaching me about a feud that ublue people have with nix 😅 https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer/issues/1445