Error message from Transmission when trying to compose up

[ApricotFarm]

After running menu.sh setup, I immediately ran docker-compose up -d as suggested in the instructions. I received the following error message:

pi@raspberrypi:~/IOTstack $ docker-compose up -d
ERROR: Named volume "transm_config_volume:/config:rw" is used in service "transmission" but no declaration was found in the volumes section.

I'm too much of a Docker noob to know how to get in and tinker with this, so I'm afraid I can't provide much insight as to why this is happening. I couldn't find any documentation to fall back to; it looks like the Transmission container is a recent experimental addition to the stack.

[Paraphraser]

On a Docker-noob scale of 1..10, I might be at 1.01. I also don't use transmission so I'm stuck at zero on that noob scale. However, I'll try to give you some pointers based on what I would try if I struck a problem like this.

You can also help by going into ~/IOTstack/docker-compose.yml and finding the chunks that look like this:

Chunk 1:

  transmission:
    image: linuxserver/transmission
    container_name: transmission
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Europe/Rome
    volumes:
      - transm_config_volume:/config
      - transm_download_volume:/downloads
      - transm_watch_volume:/watch
    ports:
      - "9091:9091"
      - "51413:51413"
      - "51413:51413/udp"
    restart: unless-stopped

Chunk 2:

  transm_download_volume:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
       o: bind
       type: none
       device: .volumes/transmission/downloads

  transm_watch_volume:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
       o: bind
       type: none
       device: .volumes/transmission/watch

  transm_config_volume:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
       o: bind
       type: none
       device: .volumes/transmission/config

Check 1

If what is in your docker-compose.yml looks different then please append the relevant chunks of your docker-compose.yml to this issue.

Check 2

If you see both chunks then I suspect that the problem is that each "device" line in chunk 2 is mal-formed. The first one looks like this:

       device: .volumes/transmission/downloads

but should probably look like this (see "More discussion" below for an explanation):

       device: ./volumes/transmission/downloads

For all three device: lines I'd insert a "/" after the "." then save docker-compose.yml and try running docker-compose up -d again.

If that fixes the problem then please confirm it.

Check 3

If you see chunk 1 but not chunk 2, that suggests something is wrong with the process for generating docker-compose.yml.

What I would do is to copy the contents of:

~/IOTstack/.templates/transmission/volumes.yml

to the clipboard, then paste them into docker-compose.yml, then try again. If that didn't work then I'd repeat Check 2 because I'm reasonably sure .volumes should be ./volumes.

If either of those fix the problem then, again, please confirm it.

Discussion

When I do this:

$ find ~/IOTstack/.templates -name "*.yml"

I get this result:

/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/grafana/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/python/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/mariadb/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/rtl_433/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/homebridge/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/plex/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/transmission/volumes.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/transmission/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/zigbee2mqtt/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/openhab/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/mosquitto/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/dozzle/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/nextcloud/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/portainer/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/pihole/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/blynk_server/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/nodered/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/telegraf/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/adminer/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/tasmoadmin/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/motioneye/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/webthings_gateway/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/diyhue/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/espruinohub/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/influxdb/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/deconz/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/deconz/service_raspbee.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/deconz/service_conbee.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/deconz/service_conbee_II.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/postgres/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/gitea/service.yml
/home/pi/IOTstack/.templates/timescaledb/service.yml

In that list, transmission is the only example with a volumes.yml file. For me, that raises two questions:

1. Are the contents of volumes.yml making it into docker-compose.yml (ie as chunk 2)?
2. If they are, are the contents of volumes.yml in the right place inside docker-compose.yml?

Check 4

Check 3 deals with Q1. Q2 is because I have no idea how docker-compose.yml is parsed or whether order is important. In other words, if I saw this error and the answer to Q1 was "yes" but the contents of volumes.yml appeared after the contents of service.yml then I might try rearranging the order in docker-compose.yml to see if it made a difference.

If you get to this point and re-ordering works then that suggests a problem with the build process so please confirm the result.

More discussion

After that, I'd look at the other examples in docker-compose.yml (eg mosquitto) and observe this kind of pattern:

    volumes:
      - ./volumes/mosquitto/data:/mosquitto/data
      - ./volumes/mosquitto/log:/mosquitto/log
      - ./volumes/mosquitto/pwfile:/mosquitto/pwfile
      ...

Each line beginning with a dash is split into two parts about the colon. The right hand side is a path inside the container while the left hand side is the path outside the container where the leading "." implies relative to the folder where docker-compose.yml is located.

Decomposing the first one as an example, the path /mosquitto/data inside the container is mapped to:

./volumes/mosquitto/data

outside the container, which expands to the absolute path:

/home/pi/IOTstack/volumes/mosquitto/data

What your error seems to be suggesting is:

transm_config_volume:/config

should be being substituted as EITHER:

• if volumes.yml is interpreted "as is":

   .volumes/transmission/config:/config
  

• OR, if volumes.yml is hand-edited to replace .volumes with ./volumes'

   ./volumes/transmission/config:/config
  

but isn't, which is what makes me wonder if the whole volumes.yml is either missing, or is in the wrong place in docker-compose.yml, or has the missing "/" problem.

Check 5

What I would do next is try to stitch together a solution for transmission that followed the pattern established by every other container type. So:

    volumes:
      - transm_config_volume:/config
      - transm_download_volume:/downloads
      - transm_watch_volume:/watch

would become:

    volumes:
      - ./volumes/transmission/config:/config
      - ./volumes/transmission/downloads:/downloads
      - ./volumes/transmission/watch:/watch

I'd also double-check that:

~/IOTstack/.templates/transmission/build.sh

had been run. It creates the three folders inside .volumes/transmission but I think those need to be there before docker-compose is run.

I hope something in this helps....

[ApricotFarm]

@Paraphraser: THANK YOU so much for the detailed and insightful answer. I would say that you're easily a full 2 on the Docker-noob scale... ;-) At any rate, I very much appreciate the time you've taken to get back to me on this.

Your hunches were all spot-on. Check 1 and Check 2 were exactly as you described them, and the fix you suggested (adding a slash after the dot) fixed the problem right up. The .templates/transmission/volumes.yml file is being copied accurately into the docker-compose.yml file, but the volumes.yml file has the same error in it: no slash between the dot and the filename. I suspect this is something that will need to be fixed.

As the whole point of the stack and menu system was to make the installation simple and mindless, I had been hoping not to have to delve into Dockers "compose" mechanism this far. Now that I have, however (and this was, in fact, not difficult), I definitely have a much better sense of how these stack/compose-up files work, and I'm glad I do. Thanks again for your help, and hopefully this can be addressed in a future release.

[Paraphraser]

You are welcome. Thanks so much for confirming that the missing slashes are indeed the problem. I have created Pull Request 102 to change the three lines in the template. With any luck it will get picked up in a future release.

[Paulzie]

Brand new download and install of Raspberry OS on to a new usb SSD
Install IOTMenu using instructions
Install Transmission plus others through menu

docker-compose up -d
ERROR: Named volume "transm_config_volume:/config:rw" is used in service "transmission" but no declaration was found in the volumes section.

Chunk 1 - exists
Chunk 2 - does not exist

Carry out Check 3 to add contents of transmission to docker-compose.yml

~/IOTstack $ docker-compose up -d
ERROR: The Compose file './docker-compose.yml' is invalid because:
Unsupported config option for services.transm_config_volume: 'driver_opts'
Unsupported config option for services.transm_download_volume: 'driver_opts'
Unsupported config option for services.transm_watch_volume: 'driver_opts'

~/IOTstack $ cd ./volumes
~/IOTstack/volumes $ ls
mosquitto

So default directories do not exist

After creating the directories

~/IOTstack $ docker-compose up -d
ERROR: The Compose file './docker-compose.yml' is invalid because:
Unsupported config option for services.transm_config_volume: 'driver_opts'
Unsupported config option for services.transm_download_volume: 'driver_opts'
Unsupported config option for services.transm_watch_volume: 'driver_opts'

So removed the items in Chunk 2

changed docker-compose.yaml to

 transmission:
     image: linuxserver/transmission
     container_name: transmission
     environment:
       - PUID=1000
       - PGID=1000
       - TZ=Europe/Rome
     volumes:
       - ./volumes/transmission/config:/config
       - ./volumes/transmission/downloads:/downloads
       - ./volumes/transmission/watch:/watch
     ports:
       - 9091:9091
       - 51413:51413
       - 51413:51413/udp
     restart: unless-stopped

Docker now starting and transmissions seems to be working ok

I now notice that docker has at some point created folders within IOTStack folder named .volume with the transmission folders as they should have been

[Paraphraser]

Thanks for that comment @Paulzie - it led me to something I had missed when preparing Pull Request 102, which I have just fixed.

The extra problem was in .templates/transmission/build.sh:

#!/bin/bash

# create directories for named volumes
TRANSMISSION_BASEDIR=.volumes/transmission
mkdir -p $TRANSMISSION_BASEDIR/downloads
mkdir -p $TRANSMISSION_BASEDIR/watch
mkdir -p $TRANSMISSION_BASEDIR/config

The 4^th line should have been:

TRANSMISSION_BASEDIR=./volumes/transmission

That explains why you have a .volumes directory in your IOTstack directory. My guess is that your .volumes only contains:

transmission/
  downloads
  watch
  config

and that each of those three sub-directories below transmission is empty. I think it's probably safe to delete .volumes.

If you want to test PR102 in advance of it being implemented officially, I think you can do it like this:

$ cd ~/IOTstack
$ git remote add -f Paraphraser https://github.com/Paraphraser/IOTstack.git
$ git checkout -b 20200805-transmission-volumes
$ git merge remotes/Paraphraser/20200805-transmission-volumes

Then run the menu and do a "full service from template" style of installation for transmission.

The mkdir -p commands are non-destructive and will not do anything if those folders are already present in ~/IOTstack/volumes/transmission.

When it comes time to undo that:

$ cd ~/IOTstack
$ git checkout master
$ git branch -D 20200805-transmission-volumes
$ git remote remove Paraphraser

Git sometimes offers multiple ways to achieve the same thing. The steps above are what I use when I want to test something from someone else's fork but if you know of a better way then (a) do that and (b) please tell me too.

[Paraphraser]

Can probably be regarded as fixed.