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”. If you want to make changes to your container, you must mount the container as --writable so you can change the contents. Note that standard Linux ownership and permission rules pertain to files within the container, so the --writable option does not guarantee you can do things like install new software. This might be a bit confusing if you copy a container from one computer to another. If your pids are different on the two computers you will lose the ability to edit files you previous had write access to. In these instances, it might be best to modify your container as root and so you would first need to become root outside of the container. Let’s examine the following example:
Installing Additional Software
We strongly recommend that you add additional software installation to your bootstrap, and re-create the image. However if you must, you can use shell and exec with --writable to issue additional commands.
$ 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
u
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
Resizing Images
You can expand your container to make it bigger after it’s been created! You don’t need sudo. You can specify a --size to expand by, or use the default of 768MiB:
singularity expand ubuntu.img
Initializing Singularity image subsystem
Opening image file: ubuntu.img
Expanding image by 768MiB
Binding image to loop
Checking file system
e2fsck 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
/dev/loop0: 11/49152 files (0.0% non-contiguous), 7387/196608 blocks
Resizing file system
resize2fs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
Resizing the filesystem on /dev/loop0 to 393216 (4k) blocks.
The filesystem on /dev/loop0 is now 393216 (4k) blocks long.