Docker containers not starting at boot

General
1

Hi there,

This issue was posted on Almalinux forum a couple of weeks ago, but maybe some people are more knowledgeable here on Docker. So the issue: on one of my Docker servers that is bare metal, I have an issue by reboot: some containers that are meant to restart automatically with restart “always” are not.

By looking at logs of docker service, I have the following message for all 3 of them:

dockerd

time=“2025-05-15T17:33:11.641164250+02:00” level=warning msg=“Failed to send unsolicited ARP” eid=1b8ca3a28f8eb8dda91f1d917c65c8d9f0f175f69940b91f8c001cb29e0ba670 ep=my-docker-name error=“no buffer space available” iface=eth0 ifi=18 ip4=192.168.X.X/24 ip6=“” mac=“86:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx” mcastRouteOk=true net=my_lan nid=8587385e7231798061efb1ca245a84583a25fd7a4a22271df43806a93af258d7

This wasn’t always like that, it was working a couple of months ago so I don’t know what changed except some updates. Same configuration/container/app with Docker on an Almalinux VM doesn’t have this issue at boot (I have a couple of them, none is impacted)

Almalinux version: AlmaLinux 9.6 (fully patched as today), Docker 28.2.2
Hardware: Minisforum MS01 / Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 (integrated NICs)
Network config: LACP trunk with several vlans
All containers are using macvlan IPs on different VLANs/subnets

Containers starts without any issue right after boot, but I have to start them manually.

The same configuration is working on several Docker server VMs.

Thanks in advance for you help! :wink::ok_hand:

2

PS: important information that I just found out: if I restart docker service, all my containers with “always” starting policy are started. Definitively not a Docker configuration issue.

I should probably add some dependencies to docker service, but which one? Here is the current list (I just added the Network Manager Wait Online service, but it didn’t help):

image
image1369×425 29.7 KB

Also, if I don’t stop any of the containers (there is around 50 on this host), a part of them will be started, so it confirms somehow that “something” needs to be ready for docker, but is not when docker service boots

Thanks in advance! :wink:

3

Since you are using MacVLAN, I would expect the parent interface to be ready, but you have an error message mentioning ARP network buffer space so I would search for that too. For example

https://serverfault.com/questions/505964/no-buffer-space-available-and-tuning-with-sysctl

To find something related to Docker, I also found this issue that seems to be related based on the “unsolicited ARP” message

Are all your containers using MacVLAN? Do you really need so many MacVLAN IPs? People really like MacVLAN, but we see that it is overused, not just whe it is really needed.