How to Solve Error Message error creating container storage: the container name is already use by using podman in Linux CentOS 8

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Introduction

This article is focusing on how to solve an error message as it exist in the title of this article. The error message is ‘error creating container storage: the container name “container_name” is already use by. Actually the error appear upon executing a command with podman. The command is to run a container using an specific image. The following is the execution of the comannd :

[podman@10 ~]$ podman run --privileged --name localhost-httpd -it -v /home/podman/website:/usr/local/apache2/htdocs -d httpd
Error: error creating container storage: the container name "localhost-httpd" is already in use by "249fbda0edad894658f2d6cff85872f29e2def28ffb3ef33add195124ab47940". You have to remove that container to be able to reuse that name.: that name is already in use
[podman@10 ~]$

Actually, executing the command above is a success in the previous step. But upon executing the above command twice, it actually ends in failure. This is the first execution of the command :

[podman@10 netns]$ podman run --name localhost-httpd -p 8080:80 -e TERM=xterm -d httpd
4752fcaaebf69c6d246fcb895434ce7306bed3614d1b12e04e3eebcb39a8427c
[podman@10 netns]$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                           COMMAND               CREATED        STATUS            PORTS                   NAMES
9edd7f98363b  docker.io/library/registry:2    /etc/docker/regis...  7 hours ago    Up 7 hours ago    0.0.0.0:5000->5000/tcp  adoring_leakey
4752fcaaebf6  docker.io/library/httpd:latest  httpd-foreground      4 seconds ago  Up 4 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp    localhost-httpd
[podman@10 netns]$

Solution

In the above output command execution, there is a container running with the name of ‘localhost-httpd’. It exist in the second or the last line in the above output execution. So, the container is already running. Executing the command twice will generate an error as it exist in the earlier part. It cannot run container with the same name. So, either use another name or just remove the old one and then execute it again. This article will show both of the solution display the latter solution.

First Solution

The first solution is just to use another container name. Just run it by changing the label name of the container. The following is the execution of the command :

[podman@10 ~]$ podman run --privileged --name another-localhost-httpd -it -v /home/podman/website:/usr/local/apache2/htdocs -p 7070:80 -d httpd
539e8c446eb706653eaac480e793fc7b4cba657723b4b911141df5e4ca09b7c7
[podman@10 ~]$

After successfully executing the above command, just execute another command to confirm the list of the container exist. The following is the display of the container running with the new one with the name of another-localhost-httpd.

[podman@10 website]$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                           COMMAND               CREATED        STATUS            PORTS                   NAMES
9edd7f98363b  docker.io/library/registry:2    /etc/docker/regis...  11 hours ago   Up 11 hours ago   0.0.0.0:5000->5000/tcp  adoring_leakey
faaded3b5ef2  docker.io/library/httpd:latest  httpd-foreground      4 hours ago    Up 4 hours ago    0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp    localhost-httpd
539e8c446eb7  docker.io/library/httpd:latest  httpd-foreground      3 seconds ago  Up 3 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:7070->80/tcp    another-localhost-httpd
[podman@10 website]$

Second Solution

Another solution, in this context it is the second solution is to remove the container and then run it again.The following are the steps to achieve it including to stop the container, to remove it and to run the container again :

[podman@10 ~]$ podman stop 4752fcaaebf6
4752fcaaebf69c6d246fcb895434ce7306bed3614d1b12e04e3eebcb39a8427c
[podman@10 ~]$ podman rm 4752fcaaebf6
4752fcaaebf69c6d246fcb895434ce7306bed3614d1b12e04e3eebcb39a8427c
[podman@10 ~]$

List the available container after executing the above command to confirm that the container is no longer exist :

[podman@10 ~]$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                         COMMAND               CREATED      STATUS          PORTS                   NAMES
9edd7f98363b  docker.io/library/registry:2  /etc/docker/regis...  7 hours ago  Up 7 hours ago  0.0.0.0:5000->5000/tcp  adoring_leakey
[podman@10 ~]$

Soon after, just run the container again using the same command as follows :

[podman@10 netns]$ podman run --name localhost-httpd -p 8080:80 -e TERM=xterm -d httpd
249fbda0edad894658f2d6cff85872f29e2def28ffb3ef33add195124ab47940
[podman@10 netns]$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                           COMMAND               CREATED         STATUS            PORTS                   NAMES
9edd7f98363b  docker.io/library/registry:2    /etc/docker/regis...  7 hours ago     Up 7 hours ago    0.0.0.0:5000->5000/tcp  adoring_leakey
249fbda0edad  docker.io/library/httpd:latest  httpd-foreground      10 seconds ago  Up 9 seconds ago  0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp    localhost-httpd
[podman@10 netns]$

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