Different results when running inside a docker container - c

Question

I am trying to run some code based on this libaio sample:
https://oxnz.github.io/2016/10/13/linux-aio/#example-1
I added the O_DIRECT flag according to libaio's documentation.
It seems to work inside my ubuntu 16.04 desktop machine (hello is written to /tmp/test).
However, when I compile and run the same sample inside a docker container nothing is written to the file. when running inside gdb I can see that an event is read by io_getevents and the result is set to -22 (EINVAL).
Any ideas?
This is my modified code
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <err.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <libaio.h>
int main() {
io_context_t ctx;
struct iocb iocb;
struct iocb * iocbs[1];
struct io_event events[1];
struct timespec timeout;
int fd;
fd = open("/tmp/test", O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_DIRECT) ;
if (fd < 0) err(1, "open");
memset(&ctx, 0, sizeof(ctx));
if (io_setup(10, &ctx) != 0) err(1, "io_setup");
const char *msg = "hello";
io_prep_pwrite(&iocb, fd, (void *)msg, strlen(msg), 0);
iocb.data = (void *)msg;
iocbs[0] = &iocb;
if (io_submit(ctx, 1, iocbs) != 1) {
io_destroy(ctx);
err(1, "io_submit");
}
while (1) {
timeout.tv_sec = 0;
timeout.tv_nsec = 500000000;
int ret = io_getevents(ctx, 0, 1, events, &timeout);
printf("ret=%d\n", ret);
if (ret == 1) {
close(fd);
break;
}
printf("not done yet\n");
sleep(1);
}
io_destroy(ctx);
return 0;
}

Answer 1

The filesystem inside the container is likely to be different to that of the host's filesystem (on modern setups is likely to be overlayfs but on older systems it could be aufs). For O_DIRECT on an open to work a device/filesystem has to at least "support" it (note the scare quotes) and it's likely your container's filesystem does not.