Lack of progress indication from the console (podman module in Cockpit) when a matching image for the architecture is missing

[gbraad]

When a download is started for a container there is no indication of progress.

For instance, we got a report that a download was started multiple times, but never finished. This was due to the fact this was running on aarch64/M1. The arch was not available for the requested image: "no image found in manifest list for architecture arm64, variant "v8", OS linux".

This didn't bubble up for us. This might be due to the fact we are hosting just the frame (without the shell). But this is problematic.

---

There are actually several issues here:

• lack of progress indication
  Lack of progress indication of container image download cockpit-project/cockpit-podman#912
  [API] No way to obtain image pull progress containers/podman#12341
• non-filtered results based on architecture
  Nonfiltered search results; container images that aren't available for the architecture are shown cockpit-project/cockpit-podman#913
  [RFE] [API] Filter registry searches on supported architecture containers/podman#13199
• missing error about no image found
  Download failures of container image not shown cockpit-project/cockpit-podman#914

Discussed with @jelly, but need more info from reporter to reproduce this

[gbraad]

@martinpitt WDYT?

[gbraad]

Lack of progress indication is known as: containers/podman#12341

[deboer-tim]

To reproduce just pick an image that doesn't support your OS, e.g. I'm on M1 so something like docker.io/library/ibmjava will fail (no errors, just shows 'downloading' forever). As per @gbraads comments, I'm less concerned with this specific error than the general problem of error reporting and feedback. e.g. this container is added to the list and shows 'downloading' indefinitely, but if I close the console window and reopen it it's gone.

[gbraad]

I'm less concerned with this specific error

I believe filter should have been applied to prevent this image to show up. I think what happens is that a default is used, the image appears, but the matching arch is not in the results. This should have been prevented by the podman image query itself.

general problem of error reporting and feedback

In the worst case, if this is related to the missing shell framing, I might consider overwriting this with a barebones implementation that at least will show some notifications and perhaps even resort to using:

Notification.requestPermission().then(function(result) {
    ...
});

and

new Notification('CodeReady Containers', {
            body: message,
            icon: "./ocp-logo.png"
        });

to have the same kind of notifications happen. Or it might even allow to use WebContents and window.api use. (Preferred)

[gbraad]

I'll try to 'hack' the Cockpit shell a little and see if we can instead use a customized wrapper.