3 files changed, 11 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/libpod/image/docker_registry_options.go b/libpod/image/docker_registry_options.go
index c434f0259..257b7ae8d 100644
--- a/libpod/image/docker_registry_options.go
+++ b/libpod/image/docker_registry_options.go
@@ -30,6 +30,8 @@ type DockerRegistryOptions struct {
 	OSChoice string
 	// If not "", overrides the use of platform.GOARCH when choosing an image or verifying architecture match.
 	ArchitectureChoice string
+	// If not "", overrides_VARIANT_ instead of the running architecture variant for choosing images.
+	VariantChoice string
 	// RegistriesConfPath can be used to override the default path of registries.conf.
 	RegistriesConfPath string
 }
@@ -43,6 +45,7 @@ func (o DockerRegistryOptions) GetSystemContext(parent *types.SystemContext, add
 		DockerArchiveAdditionalTags: additionalDockerArchiveTags,
 		OSChoice:                    o.OSChoice,
 		ArchitectureChoice:          o.ArchitectureChoice,
+		VariantChoice:               o.VariantChoice,
 		BigFilesTemporaryDir:        parse.GetTempDir(),
 	}
 	if parent != nil {
diff --git a/libpod/image/image.go b/libpod/image/image.go
index 6106084d5..dee2ce0ee 100644
--- a/libpod/image/image.go
+++ b/libpod/image/image.go
@@ -1246,7 +1246,12 @@ func areParentAndChild(parent, child *imgspecv1.Image) bool {
 	// the child and candidate parent should share all of the
 	// candidate parent's diff IDs, which together would have
 	// controlled which layers were used
-	if len(parent.RootFS.DiffIDs) > len(child.RootFS.DiffIDs) {
+
+	// issue #7444 describes a panic where the length of child.RootFS.DiffIDs
+	// is checked but child is nil.  Adding a simple band-aid approach to prevent
+	// the problem until the origin of the problem can be worked out in the issue
+	// itself.
+	if child == nil || len(parent.RootFS.DiffIDs) > len(child.RootFS.DiffIDs) {
 		return false
 	}
 	childUsesCandidateDiffs := true
diff --git a/libpod/image/pull.go b/libpod/image/pull.go
index 641698d03..bdcda4016 100644
--- a/libpod/image/pull.go
+++ b/libpod/image/pull.go
@@ -228,6 +228,7 @@ func (ir *Runtime) pullImageFromHeuristicSource(ctx context.Context, inputName s
 	if dockerOptions != nil {
 		sc.OSChoice = dockerOptions.OSChoice
 		sc.ArchitectureChoice = dockerOptions.ArchitectureChoice
+		sc.VariantChoice = dockerOptions.VariantChoice
 	}
 	sc.BlobInfoCacheDir = filepath.Join(ir.store.GraphRoot(), "cache")
 	srcRef, err := alltransports.ParseImageName(inputName)
@@ -260,6 +261,7 @@ func (ir *Runtime) pullImageFromReference(ctx context.Context, srcRef types.Imag
 	if dockerOptions != nil {
 		sc.OSChoice = dockerOptions.OSChoice
 		sc.ArchitectureChoice = dockerOptions.ArchitectureChoice
+		sc.VariantChoice = dockerOptions.VariantChoice
 	}
 	goal, err := ir.pullGoalFromImageReference(ctx, srcRef, transports.ImageName(srcRef), sc)
 	if err != nil {