How to update a lxc container

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2

Situation

A SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 is running one or more lxc containers.
While the host system receives several updates, the container does not get these updates as well.

Running e.g. zypper to update the container is not always successful.
Packages like udev, mkinitrd, mdadm and a few more fail to update as these try to create devicenodes which is not allowed in a container.

Resolution

Stop the container and update it manually with zypper. Example:

container lxc1 needs to be updated:

# lxc-stop -n lxc1
# zypper --root /var/lib/lxc/lxc1/rootfs patch
# lxc-start -n lxc1

Noncritical packages that don't require creation of device nodes still can be updated while the container is running. For a full featured update within a Service Pack the container needs to be stopped.

Cause

Disclaimer

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