GLibC issue on Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS (Focal Fossa)

[AlexTalker]

This issue is a result of debugging of a problem initially described in https://github.com/nestybox/sysbox/issues/269#issuecomment-824755263

It seems that if I take image https://hub.docker.com/r/nestybox/archlinux-systemd it will install - OK But if you ran pacman -Syu, it will not run next time and pacman gonna give out the error:

[root@2842958c9444 /]# pacman
error: failed to initialize alpm library
(could not find or read directory: /var/lib/pacman/)

This is just the tip of the iceberg and most or all of the commands will not work since that point(besides bash I think).

The issue can be minimized to following use-case:

1. When you enter the container, there's no vim and if one installs it, it gives an error:

   [root@25f4d0b16571 /]# vim
   vim: /usr/lib/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.33' not found (required by vim)

2. Then run pacman -Sy glibc and install new version
3. The issue is reproduced

Original glibc package:

[root@2842958c9444 /]# pacman -Qi glibc
Name            : glibc
Version         : 2.32-5
Description     : GNU C Library
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://www.gnu.org/software/libc
Licenses        : GPL  LGPL
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : linux-api-headers>=4.10  tzdata  filesystem
Optional Deps   : gd: for memusagestat
Required By     : argon2  attr  base  bash  bzip2  coreutils  device-mapper  expat  file  findutils  gawk  gcc-libs  gnupg  grep  gzip  iproute2  json-c  kbd  keyutils  kmod
                  less  libcap  libcap-ng  libffi  libgpg-error  libksba  libmnl  libnfnetlink  libnghttp2  libnl  libp11-kit  libpcap  libseccomp  libtasn1  libunistring
                  libxcrypt  lz4  ncurses  openssl  pacman  pam  pciutils  popt  readline  sed  systemd-libs  tar  which  zlib
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 46.16 MiB
Packager        : Jelle van der Waa <jelle@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Wed 14 Oct 2020 05:00:17 PM UTC
Install Date    : Wed 20 Jan 2021 06:55:58 PM UTC
Install Reason  : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script  : Yes
Validated By    : Signature

New package:

[root@2842958c9444 /]# pacman -Si glibc
Repository      : core
Name            : glibc
Version         : 2.33-4
Description     : GNU C Library
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://www.gnu.org/software/libc
Licenses        : GPL  LGPL
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : linux-api-headers>=4.10  tzdata  filesystem
Optional Deps   : gd: for memusagestat
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Download Size   : 9.84 MiB
Installed Size  : 46.04 MiB
Packager        : Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Sat 13 Feb 2021 09:39:21 PM UTC
Validated By    : MD5 Sum  SHA-256 Sum  Signature

Focal has:

libc-ares2/focal,now 1.15.0-1build1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libc-bin/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 amd64 [installed]
libc-dev-bin/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 amd64 [installed]
libc6-dbg/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 amd64 [installed]
libc6-dev-i386/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libc6-dev-x32/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libc6-dev/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 amd64 [installed]
libc6-dev/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 i386 [installed,automatic]
libc6-i386/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libc6-x32/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libc6/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 amd64 [installed]
libc6/focal-updates,now 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 i386 [installed,automatic]

If I create a container from the same image but on runc, updating glibc does not lead to such issue(and systemd does not work, obviously).

Any ideas how to get around the issue? @ctalledo @rodnymolina

EDIT: Extra data from original comment:

Welcome to Arch Linux!

Failed to create /init.scope control group: Operation not permitted

Failed to allocate manager object: Operation not permitted

[!!!!!!] Failed to allocate manager object.

Exiting PID 1...

[ctalledo]

Let's track this via issue #273.

Closing here.