INTRODUCTION
In this blog we will talk about running Oracle database in a PODMAN container on Apple silicon (M1 / M2) under Mac OS X. As you might know, Oracle does not provide native Oracle database binaries for Apple silicon, which is a different architecture than the Intel / AMD x86. If you previously ran a Linux container under Docker on a X86 Intel based Mac, you will find a very different situation on a newer Apple M1 or M2 processor.
Docker for Mac OS X is still available and it should be able to emulate x86 automatically. I personally had some issues getting Oracle’s pre-built database containers to work under docker, and instead decided to look into using PODMAN.
I should mention, that I still find PODMAN somewhat buggy. It’s not clear to me if this is due to the QEMU emulation of x86 on Apple silicon, or Podman, or my specific setup or some combination. So be warned, I do see a number of times where I start the Oracle database container and it fails. Then I shutdown my PODMAN machine, and restart it and then the container works again. Generally once the container is running it has been solid.
Also, since x86 is emulated on the Apple silicon, it runs much slower than what I was used to on my previous Intel based MacBook using Docker. In my antidotal tests it runs about 70% slower. Note this is not a knock on Apple silicon, this is just the nature of the full processor emulation that is required.
REQUIREMENTS
So PODMAN has a slightly different architecture than Docker and is an open source product. This means that installing and using it will be based on setting up and using a number of open source items. I won’t cover all of them in these directions. You can find many links on how to install these items. You will need
- HomeBrew (https://brew.sh) or some method to install and run open source software
- QEMU (https://www.qemu.org) Install this through HomeBrew, this is the Open Source emulation software that will emulate the x86_64 (AMD64) processor. Note you will see just about everything referenced in the Open Source world as AMD64, as that is who built the original 64-bit instruction set that Intel uses today.
- Podman (https://podman.io) the container platform, you can install this using HomeBrew or you can directly download the packages and install them
- Podman desktop (optional) (https://podman-desktop.io) a useful GUI for working with Podman, though you will still need to do some of the work on command line.
AMD64 MACHINE
The next step is to create a machine (VM) for PODMAN based on amd64 processor. I borrowed these steps from a great IBM article. I’ll paraphrase / reuse some of their commands but the source article is here:
https://developer.ibm.com/tutorials/running-x86-64-containers-mac-silicon-m1/
Note, when you install PODMAN, you will probably already have a ARM based M1 machine (VM) created. This default machine cannot run the Oracle provided containers for database.
The machine is a VM that will host your containers in PODMAN. This is the main difference from Docker which runs a OS daemon, while PODMAN uses a VM that is technically outside of the OS it is running on.
For the purpose of running Oracle database, we will have PODMAN run a Linux amd64 VM under QEMU emulation, and then our containers will run inside of that VM (machine). Open a terminal prompt (without Rossetta) and execute the following commands:
- Verify PODMAN is version 4.1.1 or newer:
podman --version - Make sure you have stopped the current machine in PODMAN:
podman machine stop - Verify your QEMU version 7.0 or higher:
qemu-system-x86_64 --version - Create a new PODMAN machine using the latest FEDORA CORE image:
Podman machine init —image-path https://builds.coreos.fedoraproject.org/prod/streams/stable/builds/37.20221225.3.0/x86_64/fedora-coreos-37.20221225.3.0-qemu.x86_64.qcow2.xz intel
Note: you can update the link by navigating to:
https://getfedora.org/en/coreos/download?tab=metal_virtualized&stream=stable&arch=x86_64
and grabbing the URL for DOWNLOAD from “Virtualized -> QEMU”
Note: the name “intel” will be the name of your PODMAN machine, you can change this to be whatever is useful for you.
Before starting this machine, we need to reconfigure it for the proper settings. This is critical, and I have made some suggestions to help with performance.
Edit the configuration file in your favorite text editor:
~/.config/containers/podman/machine/qemu/intel.json
Note: if you changed the machine name, then replace intel.json with the name your_name.json
Note: this is a JSON file, so watch your syntax closely. A quick JSON primer: https://guide.couchdb.org/draft/json.html
we will be updating JSON arrays and objects.
First in the “CmdLine” section, change the command that will be run:
"/opt/homebrew/bin/qemu-system-aarch64",
Change to:
"/opt/homebrew/bin/qemu-system-x86_64",
Also in the “CmdLine” section you will have to remove the following options that are for AARM:
"-accel",
"hvf",
"-accel",
"tgc",
"-cpu",
"host",
"-M",
"virt,highmem=on",
"-drive",
"file=/Users//.local/share/containers/podman/machine/qemu/intel_ovmf_vars.fd,if=pflash,format=raw"
Note: the -cpu may say something besides host, if it does remove that as well.
Add the following command line options in the spot you just removed:
"-cpu",
"qemu64",
"-accel",
"tcg,thread=multi",
"-m",
"2048",
"-smp",
"4",
This is basically saying these are the first command line options to the qemu-system-x86_64 command.
Note: I have set the memory (-m) to 2GB and the CPU core (-smp) count to 4. You can adjust these settings for your needs.
Next change the line for the VM firmware:
"file=/opt/homebrew/share/qemu/edk2-aarch64-code.fd,if=pflash,format=raw,readonly=on",
to
"file=/opt/homebrew/share/qemu/edk2-x86_64-code.fd,if=pflash,format=raw,readonly=on",
This is setting the correct firmware for the machine (VM).
Finally at the bottom of the configuration file is a object section that is used to display the machine information in the GUI. Update the CPUs and Memory settings appropriately:
“CPUs”: 4,
“Memory”: 2048,
Your machine file should now be setup correctly. Next we need to launch the machine and make sure PODMAN is healthy. From the terminal run:
podman machine start intel
Note: this will take a few minutes to start.
Verify the machine is running and healthy:
podman machine list
NAME VM TYPE CREATED LAST UP CPUS MEMORY DISK SIZE
intel* qemu 4 weeks ago Currently running 4 2.147GB 107.4GB
If you are only going to use this machine for your containers, you can set it to be the default by running from the terminal:
podman system connection default intel
Note: you need to restart the terminal for this to take affect.
Also you can change back to the original AARM container with:
podman system connection default podman-machine-default
Setting up your Oracle Database Container
I had some additional issues here. As I noted the emulated amd64 machine is not very fast, after I increased the SMP count to 4 I ran into another issue with the JAVA Oracle setup utilities that are executed during container creation. If you try to load your Oracle Database container and it is hanging, you should adjust your SMP count down to 1 (one) and restart your machine. Once the container is loaded and usable, you can shutdown the machine, reset the SMP back to 4 (four) or whatever you had. Then starting the container after this is fine.
I could verify the hang by connecting to the OS of the container:
podman exec -it DB213 sh
Seeing the java process running oracle.assistants.dbca.driver.DBConfigurator and the log file showed now progress happening (under /opt/oracle/cfgtoollogs/dbca/ORCLCDB)
Steps to get an Oracle Database Container
- Login to the website (container-registry.oracle.com) and accept the license. Sign in with the button in the upper left corner. Click on the repository (Database) then accept the license.
- From the terminal, login to the same repository with PODMAN (use same login you accepted the license with):
podman login container-registry.oracle.com - Pull the container of your choice into PODMAN (use the links on the website to select the specific version you want):
podman pull container-registry.oracle.com/database/enterprise:21.3.0.0 - List the installed images, you may want to note the image ID if you want a specific version:
podman image list - Now build a container from the image (using ID, you can also use REPOSITORY)
podman run -d -name DB213 container-registry.oracle.com/database/enterprise
Note: the DB213 is the my container name, use whatever name works for you.
Note: please see my preface on SMP CPU count if you are having issues with your container not creating a Oracle database properly.
To get a shell on the container:
podman exec -it DB213 sh
Additional tip
I was having some issues with timezone for my demo database. The containers will be UTC by default. If you want to change this you can set the parameter tz in the file:
$HOME/.config/containers/containers.conf
[containers]
# Set time zone in container. Takes IANA time zones as well as "local",
# which sets the time zone in the container to match the host machine.
#
tz = "local"
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