Deployment fails if altname is not supported by the kernel

[harisudhanv]

VM setup: RHEL 7.9 and kernel - 5.4.236-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64

During SRL stack creation using v 0.75.0, below error is seen:

15:44:56 DEBU Container started: "clab-virtualMDM_SRL_mix-nodeD"
15:44:56 DEBU Container started: "clab-virtualMDM_SRL_mix-nodeE"
15:44:56 DEBU Filter key: name, filter value: ^clab-virtualMDM_SRL_mix-nodeD$
15:44:56 DEBU Filter key: name, filter value: ^clab-virtualMDM_SRL_mix-nodeE$
15:44:56 DEBU StateChange: Done -> nodeD - create
15:44:56 DEBU Stage Change: Enter Wait -> nodeD - create-links
15:44:56 DEBU Stage Change: Enter Go -> nodeD - create-links
15:44:56 DEBU Creating Endpoint: nodeD:e1-1 ( --> nodeB:e1-3 )
15:44:56 DEBU StateChange: Done -> nodeE - create
15:44:56 DEBU Stage Change: Enter Wait -> nodeE - create-links
15:44:56 DEBU Stage Change: Enter Go -> nodeE - create-links
15:44:56 DEBU Creating Endpoint: nodeE:e1-1 ( --> nodeB:e1-4 )
15:44:56 DEBU failed to cleanup veth pair clab-47b204c3 after error: no such device
15:44:56 ERRO failed deploy links for node "nodeE": failed to add containerlab ownership altname: operation not supported
15:44:56 DEBU Worker 3 terminating...
15:44:56 DEBU failed to cleanup veth pair clab-4b8b9103 after error: no such device
15:44:56 ERRO failed deploy links for node "nodeD": failed to add containerlab ownership altname: operation not supported
15:44:56 DEBU Worker 0 terminating...
ERROR
Deployment failed for one or more nodes: node "nodeB" deploy links: failed to add containerlab ownership altname:
operation not supported node "nodeC" deploy links: file exists node "nodeE" deploy links: failed to add containerlab
ownership altname: operation not supported node "nodeD" deploy links: failed to add containerlab ownership altname:
operation not supported.

[hellt]

introduced in 0.75.0 after we started to propagate the link erros down the deployment chain. We should warn about altname error, not fail

[ipspace]

@hellt -- It would be great if you could fix this "soon", so we can ship netlab release 26.05 requiring containerlab 0.75.x Otherwise, we'll either fall back to 0.74.latest or declare Ubuntu 20.04 unsupported.

Thank you!

[jbemmel]

introduced in 0.75.0 after we started to propagate the link erros down the deployment chain. We should warn about altname error, not fail

Note that RHEL 7.9 GA was on September 29, 2020 and Kernel 5.4.236-1 (ELRepo) is from March 14, 2023

So the OS is almost 6 years old, and running a combination that is unsupported by RedHat (regular native kernel is 3.10).