Podman machine audit#

Findings#

The existing podman-machine-default AppleHV VM is not a reliable container host in its current state. Its rootful and rootless stores both fail after an image pull with:

readlink .../containers/storage/overlay: invalid argument

The guest itself can boot and its Podman API answers while the calling shell remains live. In this managed coding environment, vfkit is reaped after an individual podman machine start invocation returns, which explains the brief visible vfkit GUI and the apparently vanishing API socket. That lifecycle effect is separate from the overlay-store failure.

A new, isolated rootless factoidal-containers VM did pull and run PostgreSQL 16.15 once, but a later managed startup entered emergency mode with Ignition/filesystem failure. It was removed; it contained no user data. This was a diagnostic experiment, not a working project backend.

Homebrew reports Podman 5.8.2 installed and 6.1.0 available. Upgrade is the next non-destructive repair candidate; do not reset the legacy machine before checking whether its contents are worth retaining.

Legacy store inventory#

The legacy VM has:

Its contents are therefore almost entirely re-downloadable image/cache layers (GraphDB, Debian, and prior Factoidal images). Removing the VM should be safe for RDF project data based on this inspection, but parliament_native is explicitly retained for now. Do not remove the legacy VM or its image store; this remains a destructive host action requiring later explicit approval.

Consequence#

Do not claim a container-backed PostgreSQL or ejabberd test as landed yet. The already-verified Homebrew PostgreSQL bytea smoke remains the current database-host evidence. A repaired Podman install will unlock reproducible PostgreSQL and then the loopback-only ejabberd MIX pilot in tools/foafmixer.