Snapcraft produces too long instance name, instance launch fails
Metadata
Current evaluation
LXC's 63-character instance-name limit blocked snapcraft pack; no fix was recorded, and the dormant report was closed as stale.
Resolution: closed stale
Reason: No merged PR, commit, superseding work, or maintainer explanation was recorded. The sole comment, from ~mr-cal on 2022-07-15, linked charmcraft#629 and was followed by 1,492 days without activity.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
No scores available.
Issue body
$ snap info snapcraft|grep ^installed
installed: 7.0.11.post26+gita61c6032 (7943) 65MB classic
$ snapcraft pack
Failed to launch instance 'snapcraft-octavia-diskimage-retrofit-on-amd64-for-amd64-12194235'.
* Command that failed: "lxc --project snapcraft launch craft-com.ubuntu.cloud-buildd:core22 local:snapcraft-octavia-diskimage-retrofit-on-amd64-for-amd64-12194235 --config 'raw.idmap=both 1000 0' --config security.syscalls.intercept.mknod=true"
* Command exit code: 1
* Command output: b'Creating snapcraft-octavia-diskimage-retrofit-on-amd64-for-amd64-12194235\n'
* Command standard error output: b'Error: Failed instance creation: Invalid instance name: Name must be 1-63 characters long\n'
If you remove the snap name altogether the base name of the instance is:
snapcraft--on-amd64-for-amd64-12194235
$ echo -n"snapcraft--on-amd64-for-amd64-12194235"|wc
1 1 41
Which leaves 22 characters for the snap name in this case, or 20 if the inode number nears the max value.
Would you think this is sufficient? What about using a hashed instance name instead?
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed stale | LXC's 63-character instance-name limit blocked snapcraft pack; no fix was recorded, and the dormant report was closed as stale. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed stale | Closed as stale after inactivity; no fixing PR or commit is linked. The only follow-up identified the same instance-name length failure in Charmcraft #629. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed stale | Closed without a recorded Snapcraft fix; matching LaunchPad #1981205 was abandoned. Craft-providers PR #134 independently added hashed, 63-character-safe LXD names. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Abandoned. The LXC instance name length violation was not addressed, and the proposed hashed naming approach was not implemented. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Abandoned without resolution. Snapcraft generated LXC instance names exceeding the 63-character limit, causing launch failures. The suggested hashed naming approach was not implemented. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Closed without resolution. Snapcraft generated LXC instance names exceeding the 63-character limit, causing pack failures. A hashed naming solution was suggested but never implemented. The report was abandoned due to inactivity. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 | — | — | Closed without resolution. Snapcraft generated LXC instance names exceeding the 63-character limit, causing pack failures. The author suggested hashing names, but no fix was implemented. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related work
-
Related To:
canonical/charmcraft#629
(confidence 100%)
The sole comment explicitly identifies it as the same issue in Charmcraft.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1999321 Snapcraft is stuck on "launching instance..." indefinitely | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Endless LXD startup on failed container DNS now times out via craft-providers; Snapcraft 7.5.4 is recorded as fixing the wait. Multipass arm64 and Docker diagnostics remain separately tracked. | |
| #1590620 snapcraft can generage snaps with a name longer than 107 characters | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft still accepts overlong snap names during project validation, allowing builds that the Store later rejects; the maintainer discussed shorter limits, but global enforcement is absent. |