container: make ENOENT error clearer

[giuseppe]

a not existing rootfs path was giving a weird error message:

2026-07-10T11:02:00.086289Z: readlink ``: No such file or directory

[gemini-code-assist]

Code Review

This pull request modifies resolve_rootfs_path in src/libcrun/container.c to immediately return an error if realpath fails with ENOENT. However, the reviewer points out that this change breaks the fallback mechanism designed for cases where the absolute path is not visible in the current mount namespace but is accessible relatively. The reviewer suggests fixing the fallback mechanism itself and only returning the ENOENT error after the fallback has been attempted and failed.

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[gemini-code-assist]

Issue

Immediately returning an error when errno == ENOENT completely bypasses and breaks the fallback mechanism designed for cases where the absolute path is not visible/accessible in the current mount namespace but is accessible relatively (e.g., when running in restricted namespaces or chroots).

Root Cause of the Weird Error

The reason the weird error message readlink : No such file or directory` happens is because the fallback mechanism itself has a bug:

1. It opens /proc/self/cwd with O_RDONLY (which follows the symlink and opens the directory).
2. It then calls safe_readlinkat with "" and flags 0, which always fails with ENOENT on directories (especially on kernels < 5.14 where AT_EMPTY_PATH is not supported or when flags is 0).
3. Because the fallback fails, it immediately returns the error from safe_readlinkat instead of falling back to the next option or returning the original ENOENT error.

Recommended Solution

To fix both issues properly, we should:

1. Fix the fallback to use safe_readlinkat (AT_FDCWD, "/proc/self/cwd", ...) which is clean, standard, and works on all kernels.
2. Use a temporary error variable so we don't pollute err if the fallback fails.
3. Only return the clear ENOENT error after the fallback has been attempted and failed to resolve the path.

Here is the fully refactored resolve_rootfs_path function:

static int
resolve_rootfs_path (libcrun_container_t *container, char **rootfs, libcrun_error_t *err)
{
  runtime_spec_schema_config_schema *def = container->container_def;
  if (def->root && def->root->path)
    {
      *rootfs = realpath (def->root->path, NULL);
      if (UNLIKELY (*rootfs == NULL))
        {
          int saved_errno = errno;

          /* If realpath failed for any reason, try the relative directory.  */
          if (def->root->path[0] == '/')
            {
              cleanup_free char *cwd = NULL;
              ssize_t len;
              libcrun_error_t tmp_err = NULL;

              len = safe_readlinkat (AT_FDCWD, "/proc/self/cwd", &cwd, 0, &tmp_err);
              if (len >= 0)
                {
                  /* If the rootfs is under the current working directory, just use its relative path.  */
                  if (has_prefix (def->root->path, cwd) && def->root->path[len] == '/')
                    {
                      const char *it = consume_slashes (def->root->path + len);
                      if (*it)
                        *rootfs = xstrdup (it);
                    }
                }
              else
                {
                  crun_error_release (&tmp_err);
                }
            }

          /* If nothing else worked, return a clear error if it was ENOENT.  */
          if (*rootfs == NULL)
            {
              if (saved_errno == ENOENT)
                return crun_make_error (err, saved_errno, "the rootfs path `%s` does not exist", def->root->path);

              *rootfs = xstrdup (def->root->path);
            }
        }
    }
  return 0;
}

[giuseppe]

@kolyshkin PTAL

[giuseppe]

@jnovy PTAL

[jnovy]

errno can be clobbered by free() - use ENOENT directly instead of errno?

[jnovy]

Maybe I'm missing somethign but the entire fallback mechanism (readlinkat(fd, "") with an O_RDONLY fd) is broken and has been dead code since it was introduced? The PR masks this by intercepting the ENOENT that readlinkat always produces, rather than fixing the root cause. The cleaner approach is to fix the readlinkat call to actually work (use O_PATH|O_NOFOLLOW or readlinkat(proc_fd, "self/cwd", ...)) and then add the improved ENOENT error message as a final fallback after the working retry logic fails.

[giuseppe]

thanks, I've messed this up in the latest refactoring, but didn't hit a release yet.

I've reworked the implementation

[packit-as-a-service]

Ephemeral COPR build failed. @containers/packit-build please check.

[jnovy]

LGTM