Specify-7 containers on RHEL with Podman not working correctly

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It appears that the issue lies with the Specify-7 service being unable to find the database. The error message "Unknown MySQL server host 'mariadb' (-2)" suggests that the hostname ‘mariadb’ specified in the environment variable DATABASE_HOST cannot be resolved.

You should start by considering if you need this section:

  mariadb:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: mariadb
    command: --max_allowed_packet=1073741824
    ports:
      - "${MYSQL_EXTERNAL_PORT}:3306"
    volumes:
      - "database:/var/lib/mysql"
      - "./seed-database:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d"
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD}
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=${MYSQL_DATABASE}
      - MYSQL_USER=${MYSQL_USER}
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=${MYSQL_PASSWORD}

The image: mariadb: specifies the Docker image to be used for the MariaDB container. If you are using a MariaDB installation outside of Docker, you can remove this section and the accompanying volume named database.

Once this is removed, you can set it up a new variable named something like {MYSQL_EXTERNAL_IP} which would need to be set to the IP of the MariaDB installation.

In the environment section for both the specify7 and specify7-worker, you can just set the database host and port to the IP and port of the MariaDB installation.

    environment:
      - DATABASE_HOST={MYSQL_EXTERNAL_IP}
      - DATABASE_PORT={MYSQL_EXTERNAL_PORT}

I recommend referencing the just-specify7 configuration which expects a local installation of MariaDB instead of a Docker one: https://github.com/specify/docker-compositions/blob/production/just-specify7/docker-compose.yml

It also looks like you are using the v7.7 image for both the specify7 and specify7-worker section. I recommend changing this to v7 so that you can receive the latest releases. Specify 7.7 over one year old and we just launched Specify 7.9.

If you are still encountering issues with the asset server, I recommend commenting out the ASSET_SERVER_URL and ASSET_SERVER_KEY just to confirm that Specify is up and running properly without. This will rule out other issues that may be causing a problem.

    environment:
      - DATABASE_HOST={MYSQL_EXTERNAL_IP}
      - DATABASE_PORT={MYSQL_EXTERNAL_PORT}
      - DATABASE_NAME=${MYSQL_DATABASE}
      - MASTER_NAME=${MYSQL_USER}
      - MASTER_PASSWORD=${MYSQL_PASSWORD}
      - SECRET_KEY=${SPECIFY_SECRET_KEY}
      # - ASSET_SERVER_URL=http://172.17.0.1/web_asset_store.xml
      # - ASSET_SERVER_KEY=${ASSET_SERVER_KEY}

Here’s a modified version of your docker-compose.yml file that may help you resolve the issues you are encountering!

version: '3.7'
services:

  specify7:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: specifyconsortium/specify7-service:v7
    init: true
    volumes:
      - "specify6:/opt/Specify:ro"
      - "static-files:/volumes/static-files"
    environment:
      - DATABASE_HOST={MYSQL_EXTERNAL_IP}
      - DATABASE_PORT={MYSQL_EXTERNAL_PORT}
      - DATABASE_NAME=${MYSQL_DATABASE}
      - MASTER_NAME=${MYSQL_USER}
      - MASTER_PASSWORD=${MYSQL_PASSWORD}
      - SECRET_KEY=${SPECIFY_SECRET_KEY}
      - ASSET_SERVER_URL=http://172.17.0.1/web_asset_store.xml
      - ASSET_SERVER_KEY=${ASSET_SERVER_KEY}
      - REPORT_RUNNER_HOST=report-runner
      - REPORT_RUNNER_PORT=8080
      - CELERY_BROKER_URL=redis://redis/0
      - CELERY_RESULT_BACKEND=redis://redis/1
      - LOG_LEVEL=WARNING
      - SP7_DEBUG=false

  specify7-worker:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: specifyconsortium/specify7-service:v7
    command: ve/bin/celery -A specifyweb worker -l INFO --concurrency=1
    init: true
    volumes:
      - "specify6:/opt/Specify:ro"
      - "static-files:/volumes/static-files"
    environment:
      - DATABASE_HOST={MYSQL_EXTERNAL_IP}
      - DATABASE_PORT={MYSQL_EXTERNAL_PORT}
      - DATABASE_NAME=${MYSQL_DATABASE}
      - MASTER_NAME=${MYSQL_USER}
      - MASTER_PASSWORD=${MYSQL_PASSWORD}
      - SECRET_KEY=${SPECIFY_SECRET_KEY}
      - ASSET_SERVER_URL=http://172.17.0.1/web_asset_store.xml
      - ASSET_SERVER_KEY=${ASSET_SERVER_KEY}
      - REPORT_RUNNER_HOST=report-runner
      - REPORT_RUNNER_PORT=8080
      - CELERY_BROKER_URL=redis://redis/0
      - CELERY_RESULT_BACKEND=redis://redis/1
      - LOG_LEVEL=WARNING
      - SP7_DEBUG=false

  asset-server:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: specifyconsortium/specify-asset-service
    init: true
    volumes:
      - "attachments:/home/specify/attachments"
    environment:
      - SERVER_NAME=172.17.0.1
      - SERVER_PORT=80
      - ATTACHMENT_KEY=${ASSET_SERVER_KEY}
      - DEBUG_MODE=false

  specify6:
    image: specifyconsortium/specify6-service:6.8.02
    volumes:
      - "specify6:/volumes/Specify"

  nginx:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: nginx
    ports:
      - "${SPECIFY_EXTERNAL_PORTAL_PORT}:80"
    volumes:
      - "static-files:/volumes/static-files:ro"
      - "specify6:/volumes/specify6:ro"

      - "./nginx/specify.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:ro"

  report-runner:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: specifyconsortium/report-runner

  redis:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: redis:6.0

volumes:
  attachments: # the asset-servers attachment files
  specify6: # provides Specify 6 files to Specify 7 and the web server
  static-files: # provides Specify 7 static files to the web server