[Bug]: Intermittent Permission Errors reading hard links from the mount directory

[kwasimensah]

I have done the following

• I have searched the existing issues
• If possible, I've reproduced the issue using the 'main' branch of this project

Steps to reproduce

Basically reopening apple/containerization#509
Using this script

#!/usr/bin/env bash


for i in {1..100}
do
    rm -rf source_dir
    rm -rf dest_dir
    mkdir source_dir
    mkdir dest_dir
    for j in {1..100}
    do
        head -c 1000000 < /dev/urandom > source_dir/test${j}.txt
        chmod 555 source_dir/test${j}.txt
        link source_dir/test${j}.txt dest_dir/test_link${j}.txt
        chmod 555 dest_dir/test_link${j}.txt
    done

    abs_path="$(pwd)/dest_dir"
    # tar is arbitary. we just need a command that going to open and read every file in the directory
    container run -it --remove  --uid=1024 --mount=type=bind,source=${abs_path},target=/dest_dir debian:bookworm-slim tar -cf /tmp/test.tar /dest_dir
done

You will eventually see

tar: /dest_dir/test_link1.txt: Cannot open: Permission denied
tar: /dest_dir/test_link4.txt: Cannot open: Permission denied
tar: /dest_dir/test_link5.txt: Cannot open: Permission denied

Problem description

Intermittent EACCES errors when using hard links in mounts i.e a build system trying to share inputs across multiple actions and using containers as a sandbox.

Environment

- OS: macOs 26.4.1 (25E253)
- Xcode: N/A
- Container: container CLI version 1.0.0 (build: release, commit: ee848e3)

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[kwasimensah]

I find I can make this happen when more often when I have a bunch of other background tasks going (Spotify/Youtube running in multiple chrome tabs etc).

[kwasimensah]

This issue and the patch Dropbox uses seems relevant podman-container-tools/podman#23886 (comment)