Running a CentOS Docker Image on Arch Linux exits with code 139?

Question

I am trying to run a CentOS Docker Image on my Arch Linux host. Running the following command returns nothing except the 139 error code:

$ docker run -ti centos:centos6 /bin/bash                                                                                                                                
[139] $  

I have the CentOS Docker image:

centos              centos6             0cbf37812bff        2 weeks ago         194MB

and a centOS container is there under the list of containers

$ docker ps -a|grep cento                                                                                                                                                
2ef0f0d7439c        centos:centos6         "/bin/bash"              5 minutes ago       Exited (139) 5 minutes ago                       elated_turing

Docker logs also returns nothing:

$ docker logs <container id>
$

I have tried using other Docker images and they work, it only seems to affect the CentOS image but I need to use centOS for my work.

Answer 1

They were changes made on vsyscall linking in the Linux Kernel, starting with version 4.11, that caused issues with containers running Centos 6.x

2 solutions :

• Use a 7.x Centos image
• Try to boot the kernel with the parameter vsyscall=emulate

Example with GRUB, modify /etc/default/grub :

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="vsyscall=emulate"

And then run update-grub

Example with systemd-boot, modify your conf in /boot/loader/entries and add the parameter to the options line :

title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options *EXISTINGPARAMS* vsyscall=emulate

Answer 2

The best solution is to use vsyscall=emulate as advised in the other answer, of course, but if you can't reboot the machine containing CentOS 6 container (or just a CentOS 6 installation inside a chroot, as in my case) and don't mind some open-heart surgery, you can also "upgrade" CentOS 6 to use CentOS 7 glibc version to work around the problem. Note that replacing just libc.so is not enough, you need to copy at least the following files from a CentOS 7 system to /lib64 directory: ld-2.17.so, lib{c,dl,m,pthread}-2.17.so and then update the corresponding symlinks, i.e. ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, libc.so.6, libdl.so.2, libm.so.6 and libpthread.so.0 to point to 2.17 versions instead of 2.12 ones.