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Maniphest T6528

Move from fuse-overlayfs to native rootless overlay storage
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Description

Starting with Linux kernel version 5.13 podman can use a native overlay filesystem instead of relying on fuse-overlayfs which has significant performance improvements.

According to https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/podman-rootless-overlay it does require running podman system reset to reset some metadata. Because VyOS does not support user data volumes, and requires binding to a source directory, I don't think we need to worry about data migration.

There are some notes of archlinux switching to kernel overlay in https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/71358

The VyOS path for the .has-mount-program file is:

/usr/lib/live/mount/persistence/container/storage/overlay/.has-mount-program

Details

Version
-
Is it a breaking change?
Unspecified (possibly destroys the router)
Issue type
Performance optimization

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Event Timeline

artooro created this task.Jun 27 2024, 8:32 PM
pasik subscribed.Jun 27 2024, 8:45 PM
syncer triaged this task as Wishlist priority.Jun 27 2024, 11:27 PM
syncer edited projects, added VyOS Rolling; removed VyOS 1.5 Circinus.Nov 1 2024, 5:37 PM
syncer added a subscriber: Global Notifications.Nov 1 2024, 9:19 PM
freebsdjlu subscribed.Jun 19 2025, 3:54 AM
c-po subscribed.Mon, Sep 28, 6:30 PM

This has been implemented for quit some time

c-po closed this task as Resolved.Mon, Sep 28, 6:30 PM
balin subscribed.Fri, Oct 2, 8:59 AM

Thanks for closing this out. Could you point to the commit or release that implemented it? I can't find it in the source on rolling:

  • src/conf_mode/container.py generate() renders data/templates/container/storage.conf.j2 to /etc/containers/storage.conf, with no other storage override.
  • That template still sets driver = "overlay" with mount_program = "/usr/bin/fuse-overlayfs"; its last change is 2023-05-28 (T5003, runroot), so it predates this task.
  • debian/control still depends on fuse-overlayfs.
  • The quadlet templates from T9129 (vyos-1x PR #5426) carry no storage settings, so the migration doesn't seem to change this.

Which Stream release would be the first to carry native overlay?
I'm on VyOS Stream 2026.03.

Context: on 2026.03 I hit overlay storage cleanup failures across reboots ("directory not empty", same symptom as containers/podman#23504) and moved all containers to vfs under /config as a workaround. I'd like to drop that once native overlay is actually in place, so knowing where it landed would help.