nerdctl - environment variables not passed from host to container (-e)

[MatthewJSalerno]

Rancher Desktop Version

0.7.1

Rancher Desktop K8s Version

1.23.1

What operating system are you using?

macOS

Operating System / Build Version

macOS Big Sur 11.6.2

What CPU architecture are you using?

x64

Linux only: what package format did you use to install Rancher Desktop?

No response

Windows User Only

No response

Actual Behavior

When running a container with nerdctl, the environment variables are not passed to the container unless the value is explicitly defied in the run command.

nerdctl run -ti -e FOO=bar alpine env

• Will print the FOO variable

% export BAR=foo % nerdctl run -ti -e BAR alpine env

• Will not print the BAR variable even though it is being set on the host.

I have tried on debian as well and received the same result.

Steps to Reproduce

% export BAR=foo % nerdctl run -ti -e BAR -e FOO=bar alpine env

Result

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin FOO=bar TERM=xterm HOME=/root

Expected Behavior

The expected behavior is that the env set on the host (BAR) would be passed to the container by specifying "-e BAR" in the run command.

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin BAR=foo FOO=bar TERM=xterm HOME=/root

Additional Information

Possibly related to https://github.com/rancher-sandbox/rancher-desktop/issues/1267 but the main focus on that issue is related to proxies.

[evertonlperes]

Just replicated the issue and it seems similar to https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/issues/412 Using containerd:

❯ nerdctl run -it --env BAR --env FOO=bar alpine env
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
FOO=bar
TERM=xterm
HOME=/root
❯ nerdctl run -it --env BAR --env FOO=bar alpine env
❯ export VERTO=test

❯ nerdctl run -it --env VERTO --env FOO=bar alpine env
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
FOO=bar
TERM=xterm
HOME=/root

❯ nerdctl run -it --env $VERTO --env FOO=bar alpine env
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
FOO=bar
TERM=xterm
HOME=/root

Using moby (dockerd) container runtime, works as expected:

❯ docker run -it --env BAR --env FOO=bar alpine env
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
HOSTNAME=827ccd1f8a61
TERM=xterm
BAR=foo
FOO=bar
HOME=/root

RD version: 1.0.0-beta1 OS: macOS Monterey 12.1 - amd64

[bhavanki]

This may be fixed when Rancher Desktop ships with nerdctl >= 1.1.0:

https://github.com/containerd/nerdctl/pull/1524

[jandubois]

@bhavanki That is a different issue. The problem for Rancher Desktop is that nerdctl has to run inside the VM to have access to the image layer storage. That means it doesn't see the environment variables defined in the shell on macOS.

The nerdctl issue would be referring to the VM as the host, as opposed to the container.