Cannot launch lxd instance with high uids
Metadata
Current evaluation
Bug preventing LXD instance launch for users with UID > 65,535. Acknowledged by maintainer, no fix yet, workaround available.
Suggested action: keep open
Reason: This is a valid bug affecting enterprise deployments with high UIDs, acknowledged by maintainer mr-cal who confirmed no progress has been made and provided a workaround. The issue remains unfixed and should stay open for future resolution.
Impact:
45
Quick Win:
20.25
Staleness:
65
Complexity:
55
Confidence:
75
Support Request:
15
Issue body
### Overview
If the current user's uid (user id) is greater than 65,535, then craft-providers will fail to launch a LXD instance.
### Details
Craft-providers [sets the id map](https://github.com/canonical/craft-providers/blob/adc7860d52ba984957433e5331a98eb044239bc6/craft_providers/lxd/launcher.py#L381) so the host's working directory can be mounted in the instance. On the other side, LXD does UID/GID mapping for security reasons (see more [here](https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/docs/latest/userns-idmap/)).
When craft-providers launches a container with the config `raw.idmap=both <uid> 0`, LXD fails with `Error: Failed instance creation: Failed creating instance record: Failed initialising instance: Host id is in the range of subids`.
High uids occur in enterprise deployments where technologies like NIS, SSSD, and/or Active Directory are being used.
### Possible solutions
If uid>65,535, then:
1. warn and provide a link to the documentation
2. update the `charmcraft` project in LXD to accommodate high uids (`security.idmap.base`, `security.idmap.size`)
### Source
- https://github.com/canonical/charmcraft/issues/1054
- https://github.com/canonical/lxd/issues/11600
- https://discourse.charmhub.io/t/using-charmcraft-with-very-high-uids/7208
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Impact:
45
Quick Win:
20.25
Staleness:
65
Complexity:
55
Confidence:
75
Support Request:
15
|
keep open | Bug preventing LXD instance launch for users with UID > 65,535. Acknowledged by maintainer, no fix yet, workaround available. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
75
Complexity:
60
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
10
|
keep open | Bug where craft-providers fails to launch LXD instances for users with UIDs over 65,535 due to LXD mapping limits. Acknowledged by maintainer, currently stalled with a workaround available. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
75
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
10
|
keep open | Valid bug where craft-providers fails to launch LXD instances for users with UIDs > 65535. Acknowledged by maintainer, includes a workaround, but no progress has been made. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
80
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
20
|
close stale | craft-providers fails to launch LXD instances when user UIDs exceed 65,535 due to LXD mapping limits. Maintainer-acknowledged with a documented workaround, but no fix implemented in over three years. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related issues
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