Can not create a container from oci-archive via http api

[towe75]

Is this a BUG REPORT or FEATURE REQUEST? (leave only one on its own line)

/kind bug

Description

I'm not able to use the http api to create a container backed by a oci-archive.
This was possible with the older, varling based, api.

Steps to reproduce the issue:

1. Create a oci-archive file.

podman pull docker://docker.io/library/busybox:latest
podman push busbox:latest oci-archive:/tmp/busybox.oci

2. Try to create a container

curl -d '{"image":"oci-archive:/tmp/busybox.oci"}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" --unix-socket /run/podman/podman.sock http://localhost/v1.24/libpod/containers/create

{"cause":"invalid reference format","message":"invalid reference format","response":500}

3. Using a regular image works like expected

curl -d '{"image":"docker://busybox:latest"}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" --unix-socket /run/podman/podman.sock http://localhost/v1.24/libpod/containers/create    

{"Id":"0389ef309949311f6a9828d759a8e90241c59655215f423b8c45a1c6b3d2447c","Warnings":[]} 

Describe the results you received:

I've got a "invalid reference format" error.

Additional information you deem important (e.g. issue happens only occasionally):

This is related to hashicorp/nomad-driver-podman#69

Output of podman version:

Version:      2.2.1
API Version:  2.1.0
Go Version:   go1.14.10
Built:        Tue Dec  8 15:37:43 2020
OS/Arch:      linux/amd64

[mheon]

@vrothberg I believe this was disabled intentionally? Is there a recommended alternative (e.g. doing a manual load on the image first?)

[vrothberg]

That's right. Only the docker:// transport and local images are supported for create. In case of an oci-archive, we first need to load it and can then create and run containers.

[towe75]

@vrothberg : please explain how this should work. AFAIK the image/load api is supposed to upload a image from some http client to the podman server. But the older, varlink based, create call expected a oci-archive directly on the podman node. That is quite some difference and has a huge impact on both performance and storage io.

Also in the context of our nomad plugin: each spawned task would again have to load the same image because we can not tell if it was imported before. There is no way to get image name and tags from the oci-archive via podman etc.

Is there some other alternative?

[vrothberg]

@towe75, that's right. A client would have to upload the oci-archive, and then we can use the previously loaded image to create and run containers.

I don't think that the archive has to be uploaded each and every time. We can check the presence of an image via the libpod/images/$nameOrID/exists endpoint. Assuming the image in the oci-archive has a known name/tag, you can first check if it's present, upload if needed and then continue creating/running containers.

Would that work for you?