Making Changes to an Existing Container
It is possible that you may need to make changes to a container after it has been bootstrapped. For that, let’s repeat the Singularity mantra “A user inside a Singularity container is the same user as outside the container”. This means if you want to make changes to your container, you must be root inside your container, which means you must first become root outside your container. Additionally you will need to tell Singularity that you wish to mount the container as --writable so you can change the contents. Let’s examine the following example:
$ singularity shell /tmp/Centos7-ompi.img
Singularity: Invoking an interactive shell within container...
Singularity.Centos7-ompi.img> which ls
sh: which: command not found
Let’s use this opportunity to install an additional package into this container:
$ sudo singularity exec --writable /tmp/Centos7-ompi.img yum install which
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* base: mirror.hostduplex.com
* extras: mirrors.centos.webair.com
* updates: linux.mirrors.es.net
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package which.x86_64 0:2.20-7.el7 will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Dependencies Resolved
====================================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
====================================================================================================
Installing:
which x86_64 2.20-7.el7 base 41 k
Transaction Summary
====================================================================================================
Install 1 Package
Total download size: 41 k
Installed size: 75 k
Is this ok [y/d/N]: y
Downloading packages:
which-2.20-7.el7.x86_64.rpm | 41 kB 00:00:00
Running transaction check
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded
Running transaction
Installing : which-2.20-7.el7.x86_64 1/1
Verifying : which-2.20-7.el7.x86_64 1/1
Installed:
which.x86_64 0:2.20-7.el7
Complete!
We could have also used the shell container interface command to do this.
$ sudo singularity shell --writable /tmp/Centos7-ompi.img
Singularity: Invoking an interactive shell within container...
Singularity.Centos7-ompi.img> yum install vi
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* base: mirror.hostduplex.com
* extras: mirrors.centos.webair.com
* updates: linux.mirrors.es.net
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package vim-minimal.x86_64 2:7.4.160-1.el7 will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Dependencies Resolved
====================================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
====================================================================================================
Installing:
vim-minimal x86_64 2:7.4.160-1.el7 base 436 k
Transaction Summary
====================================================================================================
Install 1 Package
Total download size: 436 k
Installed size: 896 k
Is this ok [y/d/N]: y
Downloading packages:
vim-minimal-7.4.160-1.el7.x86_64.rpm | 436 kB 00:00:00
Running transaction check
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded
Running transaction
Installing : 2:vim-minimal-7.4.160-1.el7.x86_64 1/1
Verifying : 2:vim-minimal-7.4.160-1.el7.x86_64 1/1
Installed:
vim-minimal.x86_64 2:7.4.160-1.el7
Complete!
Singularity.Centos7-ompi.img> exit