PostgreSQL 18.0. Error on creation a new container with empty data.

[ornicum]

Hello,

I'm trying to create a new one container of PostgreSQL 18.0 with empty data directory.

Here is my docker-compose yml file:

version: "3"

services:
db:
container_name: "osts_db"
image: postgres:latest
expose:
- "5432"
env_file:
- ../.env
volumes:
- ../postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
deploy:
resources:
limits:
cpus: '0.5'
memory: 512M
reservations:
cpus: '0.25'
memory: 256M
command:
postgres -c max_connections=1000
-c shared_buffers=256MB
-c effective_cache_size=768MB
-c maintenance_work_mem=64MB
-c checkpoint_completion_target=0.7
-c wal_buffers=16MB
-c default_statistics_target=100
restart: unless-stopped
tty: true
stdin_open: true

volumes:
postgres_data: {}

Here is the problem:

Creating osts_db ... error

ERROR: for osts_db Cannot start service db: failed to create task for container: failed to create shim task: OCI runtime create failed: runc create failed: unable to start container process: error during container init: error mounting "/home/.../postgres_data" to rootfs at "/var/lib/postgresql/data": change mount propagation through procfd: open o_path procfd: open /var/lib/docker/overlay2/.../merged/var/lib/postgresql/data: no such file or directory: unknown

ERROR: for db Cannot start service db: failed to create task for container: failed to create shim task: OCI runtime create failed: runc create failed: unable to start container process: error during container init: error mounting "/home/.../postgres_data" to rootfs at "/var/lib/postgresql/data": change mount propagation through procfd: open o_path procfd: open /var/lib/docker/overlay2/.../merged/var/lib/postgresql/data: no such file or directory: unknown

I have checked the path and really there is no directory "merged" in /var/lib/docker/overlay2/<some_hash>.

The same config works good for PostgreSQL 17.6.

Please, help to fix it.

Thank you in advance.

Andrei Shestakov

[jcoene]

Hi all, thanks for the release! I'm seeing the same issue with the new postgres:18 image (linux/amd64), tested on both Debian 12 and Arch:

> cd ~ && mkdir test17 test18

> docker run -i -t --rm -v ~/test17:/var/lib/postgresql/data -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=test postgres:17
# works fine

> docker run -i -t --rm -v ~/test18:/var/lib/postgresql/data -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=test postgres:18
docker: Error response from daemon: failed to create task for container: failed to create shim task: OCI runtime create failed: runc create failed: unable to start container process: error during container init: error mounting "/home/testuser/test18" to rootfs at "/var/lib/postgresql/data": change mount propagation through procfd: open o_path procfd: open /var/lib/docker/overlay2/a05a0aa1fef36c8270f381a2d0c3cba5ac543050e8c652504e2413e226e31a23/merged/var/lib/postgresql/data: no such file or directory

[ImreSamu]

docker run -i -t --rm -v ~/test18:/var/lib/postgresql/data -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=test postgres:18

There has been a change with PG18 + PGDATA,
described in the documentation under PGDATA + “Important Change”:

• https://github.com/docker-library/docs/tree/master/postgres#pgdata
  • Change PGDATA in 18+ to /var/lib/postgresql/MAJOR/docker #1259

The key point:
* For version 18 the path is : /var/lib/postgresql/18/docker

So the correct command is:
* docker run -d -v ~/test18:/var/lib/postgresql/18/docker -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=test postgres:18

[ornicum]

docker run -i -t --rm -v ~/test18:/var/lib/postgresql/data -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=test postgres:18

There has been a change with PG18 + PGDATA, described in the documentation under PGDATA + “Important Change”:

* https://github.com/docker-library/docs/tree/master/postgres#pgdata
  
  * [Change `PGDATA` in 18+ to `/var/lib/postgresql/MAJOR/docker` #1259](https://github.com/docker-library/postgres/pull/1259)

The key point:

* For version 18 the path is :  `/var/lib/postgresql/18/docker`

So the correct command is:

* `docker run -d -v ~/test18:/var/lib/postgresql/18/docker -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=test postgres:18`

Thank you a lot! It helped!

[tianon]

I would suggest -v ~/test:/var/lib/postgresql instead of -v ~/test18:/var/lib/postgresql/18/docker TBH 😇

[johnbizokk]

I would suggest -v ~/test:/var/lib/postgresql instead of -v ~/test18:/var/lib/postgresql/18/docker TBH 😇

But the why the VOLUME directive still target using the old target ? https://github.com/docker-library/postgres/blob/304578a4b447792df66768a25a54e2247b117e74/Dockerfile-debian.template#L200C1-L200C32

[tianon]

That's in the template because it's used for 17 and older - you can see a few lines above where the value for 18+ is:

postgres/18/trixie/Dockerfile

Lines 188 to 194 in 22ca5c8

	#
	# NOTE: in 18+, PGDATA has changed to match the pg_ctlcluster standard directory structure, and the VOLUME has moved from /var/lib/postgresql/data to /var/lib/postgresql
	#
	ENV PGDATA /var/lib/postgresql/18/docker
	RUN ln -svT . /var/lib/postgresql/data # https://github.com/docker-library/postgres/pull/1259#issuecomment-2215477494
	VOLUME /var/lib/postgresql
	# ("/var/lib/postgresql" is already pre-created with suitably usable permissions above)

[adrielairaldo]

I was experiencing this same problem today in my Kubernetes (K8s) cluster. Since I already have an idea of how to solve it, I'm leaving some keywords so that other users can find this more easily.

In my case, in my Kubernetes cluster, I was using the image: postgres:latest. This caused my cluster to automatically upgrade from version 17.6 to 18. The error was visible in the pod as RunContainerError.

When describing the pod, I found an error like the following:

Error: failed to start container "postgres": Error response from daemon: failed to create task for container: failed to create shim task: OCI runtime create failed: runc create failed: unable to start container process: error during container init: error mounting "/var/lib/k8s-pvs/postgres-pvc/pvc-64830bb8-f957-4d45-b2fc-bb1451c74c1e" to rootfs at "/var/lib/postgresql/data": change mount propagation through procfd: open o_path procfd: open /var/lib/docker/rootfs/overlayfs/postgres/var/lib/postgresql/data: no such file or directory: unknown

As mentioned above, the problem lies in the path where version 18 is storing the data. To solve the problem, the new configuration of your yml should look like this:

        volumeMounts:
          - mountPath: /var/lib/postgresql/18/docker # Previously: /var/lib/postgresql/data
            name: postgresdata

Thanks to those who have previously contributed information.