(Podman task) Modprobe: FATAL: Module overlay not found in directory

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I’ve had the following error on F2FS, I’ve deleted the affected folder, and would keep getting the same error on F2FS.

I tried reformatting to EXT4, and am now still getting the same error. I checked if Modprobe could enable overlay, but I get the following error

sudo ls /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/fs/overlayfs/overlay.ko
ls: cannot access '/lib/modules/6.19.6-arch1-1/kernel/fs/overlayfs/overlay.ko': No such file or directory

sudo modprobe overlay

modprobe: FATAL: Module overlay not found in directory /lib/modules/6.19.6-arch1-1

However I have the following

/lib/modules/6.19.8-arch1-1/kernel/fs/overlayfs/overlay.ko.zst

And also go this error:

Error: configure storage: kernel does not support overlay fs: 'overlay' is not supported over extfs at "/home/dudess/.local/share/containers/storage/overlay": backing file system is unsupported for this graph driver

The following shows CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS=m which online it says it could be available but is not loaded.

zcat /proc/config.gz | grep OVERLAY_FS
CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS=m
CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_DIR=y
# CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_ALWAYS_FOLLOW is not set
CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_INDEX=y
CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_XINO_AUTO=y
CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_METACOPY=y
# CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_DEBUG is not set

And the following shows ext4 for the file system type.

mount | grep ext4
/dev/nvme0n1p2 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime)
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This is usually because the overlay module isn’t built as a loadable module in your kernel — it’s either built-in or not compiled at all.

Check with:

grep OVERLAY /boot/config-$(uname -r)

If it shows CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS=y, the module is built into the kernel (not loadable), so modprobe won’t find it but it should still work. Podman just checks incorrectly.

If it’s not there at all, you might need to install linux-headers and rebuild, or use a different storage driver like vfs (slower but works everywhere):

# In containers.conf or storage.conf
[storage]
driver = "vfs"
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OP edited

I’m not sure what changed this morning. Maybe a simple reboot fixed it, or another update.

Running the following zcat /proc/config.gz | grep OVERLAY_FS

Shows the following, which I read means the module is available but not loaded.

CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS=m

Even after everything was working, I went to ahead to install linux-headers sudo pacman -Su linux-headers anyways.

I’m able to run the following now without errors from the command
sudo modprobe overlay

However I still see CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS=m

When you say rebuild, do you mean rebuild the Podman containers?

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OP edited

Discovered it was because I had just updated on system, and

uname -a

was showing a different than version than the following showing my Linux version installed

pacman -Q linux

So I simply had to reboot.

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