containerd/containerd · error

dm-verity formatting is only supported on Linux systems

Error message

dm-verity formatting is only supported on Linux systems

What it means

This error is returned by the non-Linux (stub) implementation of erofsDiff.formatDmverityLayer. dm-verity tree formatting requires Linux device-mapper support, so on builds for other platforms the method unconditionally fails with this message. It indicates the requested operation cannot be performed on the current OS.

Source

Thrown at plugins/diff/erofs/dmverity_other.go:27

       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

   Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
   distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
   WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
   See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
   limitations under the License.
*/

package erofs

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
)

func (s *erofsDiff) formatDmverityLayer(_ context.Context, _ string) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("dm-verity formatting is only supported on Linux systems")
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4246446a2b)

Solutions

1. Run the workload on a Linux host where dm-verity is supported
2. Remove or disable dm-verity options (e.g. disable EnableDmverity in the erofs differ config) on non-Linux platforms
3. Check build tags to ensure the Linux dmverity implementation is compiled in

Example fix

// before (non-Linux build)
err := d.formatDmverityLayer(ctx, target)
// after
dmSupported := runtime.GOOS == "linux"
if dmSupported {
    err = d.formatDmverityLayer(ctx, target)
}

if runtime.GOOS != "linux" {
    return fmt.Errorf("dm-verity requires Linux; got %s", runtime.GOOS)
}

func dmVeritySupported() bool { return runtime.GOOS == "linux" }

if err := d.formatDmverityLayer(ctx, target); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "only supported on Linux") {
        // fall back to non-dmverity path
        return regularDiff(ctx, target)
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling formatDmverityLayer (e.g. while generating a dm-verity root hash for an erofs layer diff) on a non-Linux build, since the build-tagged dmverity_other.go file replaces the Linux implementation with this stub.

Common situations: Running containerd with the erofs diff plugin and dm-verity enabled on macOS or Windows, or cross-compiling/copying a non-Linux binary onto a host and expecting dm-verity output.

Understand the failure class

Background: "unsupported platform" / "not supported on this platform" errors: what they mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 47 libraries.

Related errors

• failed to read dm-verity metadata from %s: %w
• layer requires dm-verity but system doesn't support it (dm_v
• failed to open dm-verity device: %w
• existing dm-verity device %q verification failed: %w
• dm-verity support check failed: %w

AI-assisted analysis of containerd/containerd@4246446a2b (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6709d0c660f36099. Report an issue: GitHub.