Podman - Docker Alternative

Podman is a daemonless alternative to Docker that works with OCI compatible containers. Podman’s CLI works just like Docker - you can even alias it with alias docker=podman, and forget you are using it. podman compose is an alias to docker compose, and is available only if you install Docker Compose.

Important commands

• podman build: build a Containerfile.
• podman exec: run a process inside a running container.
• podman image <subcommand>: manages images.
• podman images: lists images in local repository.
• podman info: displays the Podman system information. Useful for debugging.
• podman inspect: display artifact, container, image, volume, network, or pod’s configuration.
• podman kube <subcommand>: plays containers, pods or volumes based on structured configuration.
  • podman kube generate: generates Kubernetes manifests.
• podman logs: displays container logs.
• podman network <subcommand>: tool for managing networks.
• podman pod <subcommand>: management tool for groups of containers, called pods (like in K8s).
• podman ps: lists running containers.
• podman pull: pull an image from a registry.
• podman push push an image to a registry.
• podman quadlet <subcommand>: management tool for quadlets, a way of declaring containers, pods, networks and images using systemd unit files.
• podman rm: remove one or more containers.
• podman run: runs a command inside of a new container.
• podman start: start one or more containers
• podman stop: stop one or more containers
• podman volume <subcommand>: manage volumes.
• podman wait: block on one or more containers. Useful when there is a dependency between containers.

What are pods?

Podman pods are similar to the Kubernetes ones, where you group multiple containers into a unit. They can be used as an alternative to Docker Compose.

• podman pod <subcommand> is used to manage pods:
  • create, exists and list.
  • inspect displays the pod configuration
  • kill to kill and rm to remove a pod
  • start, restart and stop

You can add a container to a pod using --pod when creating a container. You can also leverage Kubernetes YAML (kind: Pod) to manage pods declaratively using podman kube play.

What are quadlets?

Quadlet is a tool for running Podman containers under systemd, very similar to how you regiser a service (or unit in systemd lingo).