Containers from Fedora images launch with no network

1

I have come across unexpected behaviour with the Fedora images. I first noticed this behaviour in a CI job that I run using GitHub actions. I can reproduce this locally as well.

In brief:

  • I start a Fedora container
  • there is no network connection
  • the systemd-networkd service is not started
  • if I manually start the systemd-networkd then networking functions as expected

I note the same behaviour with:

  • images:fedora/40
  • images:fedora/40/cloud
  • images:fedora/41
  • images:fedora/41/cloud

With Debian images including images:debian/12/cloud and images:debian/13/cloud, systemd-networkd starts as expected and networking functions as expected.

The last successful CI job started Sun, 23 Mar 2025 11:54:24 GMT and I first saw this error in a job starting Wed, 26 Mar 2025 07:37:45 GMT.

Steps to reproduce

Command:

incus launch images:fedora/41/cloud c1

Output:

Launching c1

Command:

incus exec c1 -- ping -c4 8.8.8.8

Output:

ping: connect: Network is unreachable

Command:

incus exec c1 -- systemctl status systemd-networkd

Output:

○ systemd-networkd.service - Network Configuration
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-networkd.service; disabled; preset: disabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
             └─10-timeout-abort.conf, 50-keep-warm.conf
             /run/systemd/system/systemd-networkd.service.d
             └─zzz-lxc-ropath.conf
             /run/systemd/system/service.d
             └─zzz-lxc-service.conf
     Active: inactive (dead)
TriggeredBy: ○ systemd-networkd.socket
       Docs: man:systemd-networkd.service(8)
             man:org.freedesktop.network1(5)
   FD Store: 0 (limit: 512)

Command:

incus exec c1 -- systemctl start systemd-networkd \
&& incus exec c1 -- ping -c4 8.8.8.8

Output:

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=14.4 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=16.3 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=15.9 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=16.7 ms

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3005ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 14.437/15.850/16.736/0.869 ms
Confirm working setup with Debian

Command:

incus launch images:debian/12/cloud c1

Command:

incus exec c1 -- ping -c4 8.8.8.8

Output:

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=16.5 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=16.5 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=17.1 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=17.2 ms

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 16.499/16.826/17.185/0.319 ms
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