Dear list,

In the past,
if I wanted to clone a baremetal server to another server,
I just copied its root directory (/) and chrooted to it.
Then, I could run services via old sysv init scripts.
(/etc/init.d/service start/stop/status)

It is no longer the case now with debian 12,
(surely even before debian 12)
and I've been advised to look into machineclt and systemd-nspawn.

I have absolutely no experience in running containers,
systemd or otherwise,
and I'm not sure how this all works with nspawn,
but I created a symlink to the location of the cloned server inside of /var/lib/machines/
(as /var/lib/machines/clone-messagerie)
so that machinectl can find it,
then started the machine with

$ machinectl start clone-messagerie


then tried to login to the cloned host via


$ machinectl login clone-messagerie


I got different results depending on the tries,
not sure what action did I do that changed the results.
So, the first time I had this error:


# machinectl login clone-messagerie
Failed to get login PTY: Connection timed out
#


After a restart of the machine (machinectl stop/start)
I get this:


# machinectl login clone-messagerie
Failed to get login PTY: There is no system bus in container clone-messagerie.
#


machinectl status shows that systemd is running inside of payload,
not as pid 1 though,
and shows systemd-nspawn in the supervisor section.


# machinectl status clone-messagerie
clone-messagerie(823952398253425ab703ecef4bdd936e)
Since: Tue 2025-02-11 13:55:25 CET; 1min 39s ago
Leader: 171516 (systemd)
Service: systemd-nspawn; class container
Root: /mnt/anciennevar/clone-messagerie
Iface: ve-clone-me-Nbp
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)
UID Shift: 38928384
Unit: systemd-nspawn@clone-messagerie.service
├─payload
│ ├─171516 /lib/systemd/systemd
│ ├─171582 /lib/systemd/systemd-journald
│ ├─171825 /usr/bin/freshclam -d --foreground=true
│ ├─171826 /usr/sbin/atd -f
│ ├─171829 /usr/sbin/cron -f
│ ├─171892 /usr/sbin/irqbalance --pid=/var/run/irqbalance.pid
│ ├─171896 /usr/sbin/opendkim -x /etc/opendkim.conf -u postfix -P /var/run/opendkim/opendkim.pid
│ ├─171907 /usr/sbin/ntpd -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -g -u 112:119
│ ├─172096 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
│ ├─172136 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
│ ├─172139 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
│ ├─172141 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
│ ├─172142 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
│ ├─172143 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
│ ├─172318 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/fail2ban-server -b -s /var/run/fail2ban/fail2ban.sock -p /var/run/fail2ban/fail2ban.pid
│ ├─172714 /usr/sbin/rsyslogd -n
│ ├─172716 /usr/sbin/acpid
│ └─172721 /usr/sbin/sshd -D
└─supervisor
└─171514 systemd-nspawn --quiet --keep-unit --boot --link-journal=try-guest --network-veth -U --settings=override --machine=clone-messagerie

Feb 11 13:56:41 messagerie-recup systemd-nspawn[171514]: [ OK ] Started LSB: starts FusionInventory Agent.
Feb 11 13:56:41 messagerie-recup systemd-nspawn[171514]: [ OK ] Started LSB: Apache2 web server.
Feb 11 13:56:41 messagerie-recup systemd-nspawn[171514]: [ OK ] Started LSB: Starts and daemonize Glances server.
Feb 11 13:56:41 messagerie-recup systemd-nspawn[171514]: [ OK ] Started LSB: disk temperature monitoring daemon.
Feb 11 13:56:41 messagerie-recup systemd-nspawn[171514]: [ OK ] Started LSB: Start NTP daemon.
Feb 11 13:56:41 messagerie-recup systemd-nspawn[171514]: [ OK ] Started LSB: Starts amavisd-new mailfilter.
Feb 11 13:56:41 messagerie-recup systemd-nspawn[171514]: [ OK ] Started LSB: Start/stop fail2ban.
Feb 11 13:56:41 messagerie-recup systemd-nspawn[171514]: [ OK ] Started Permit User Sessions.
Feb 11 13:56:41 messagerie-recup systemd-nspawn[171514]: [ OK ] Started Initialize hardware monitoring sensors.
Feb 11 13:56:41 messagerie-recup systemd-nspawn[171514]: [ OK ] Started System Logging Service.
#


The funny thing is that systemd-nspawn -bM clone-messagerie works just fine.


# systemd-nspawn -bM clone-messagerie
Spawning container clone-messagerie on /mnt/anciennevar/clone-messagerie.
Press ^] three times within 1s to kill container.
systemd 215 running in system mode. (+PAM +AUDIT +SELINUX +IMA +SYSVINIT +LIBCRYPTSETUP +GCRYPT +ACL +XZ -SECCOMP -APPARMOR)
Detected virtualization 'systemd-nspawn'.
Detected architecture 'x86-64'.

Welcome to Debian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)!

Set hostname to <messagerie-prep>.
Failed to install release agent, ignoring: No such file or directory

...


[ OK ] Stopped OpenBSD Secure Shell server.
Starting OpenBSD Secure Shell server...
[ OK ] Started OpenBSD Secure Shell server.
Stopping OpenBSD Secure Shell server...
[ OK ] Stopped OpenBSD Secure Shell server.
Starting OpenBSD Secure Shell server...
[FAILED] Failed to start OpenBSD Secure Shell server.
See 'systemctl status ssh.service' for details.

Debian GNU/Linux 8 messagerie-prep console

messagerie-prep login: root
Password:
Last login: Sun Feb 9 17:04:50 CET 2025 on pts/0
Linux messagerie-prep 5.10.0-27-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.205-2 (2023-12-31) x86_64

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
^ ^
^ ceci est la machine messagerie-prep ^
^ ^
^ ^
^ C'est une machine virtuelle qui se trouve ^
^ sur vSphere 1 (10.10.10.41) ^
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
root@messagerie-prep[10.10.10.20][CHROOT] ~ #





So I really don't understand why machinectl fails where systemd-nspawn works.
I thought they were two different tools with the same purpose,
but apparently I am missing something?

Best,



--
yassine -- sysadm
http://about.me/ychaouche
Looking for side gigs.

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