Podman Cheatsheet

Unless otherwise specified, we will use the following dummy data in the examples:

• Container name: mycontainer
• Pod name: mypod
• Image from a registry: docker.io/library/nginx
  • In a lot of cases, you can use a shorter name: nginx
• Custom image’s tag: myimg
• Kubernetes YAML: infile.yml, outfile.yml

Terminal Commands Summary

Local image management:

# List all images
podman images
# Example output:
#    REPOSITORY               TAG     IMAGE ID      CREATED     SIZE
#    docker.io/library/nginx  latest  4e1b6bae1e48  8 days ago  197 MB

# Search the remote registries for images containing keyword `nginx`
podman search nginx
# Example output:
#    NAME                      DESCRIPTION
#    docker.io/library/nginx   Official build of Nginx.

# Pull image from remote registry
podman pull docker.io/library/nginx
# Without specifying the tag, it pulls the latest version.

# Delete image
podman rmi nginx

# Build an image using the Containerfile/Dockerfile in the current directory
podman build -t myimg .

Creating and managing containers:

# List all containers, don't leave out any info, and show pod info
podman ps -a --no-trunc --pod
# List creating/running containers
podman ps

# Create and start a container
podman run --name mycontainer -t -p 8080:80/tcp nginx
# Create a container (without starting)
podman container create --name mycontainer -t -p 8080:80/tcp nginx
# Both commands will pull the image if not present.
# There are a lot of options. Some common ones:
#     Run in detached mode:
#         -d
#     Name the container:
#         --name mycontainer
#     Map host TCP port 8080 to container port 80:
#         -p 8080:80/tcp
#     Add container to a pod:
#         --pod mypod
#     Allocate a pseudo-TTY:
#         -t
#     Bind mount host path `/my/content` to container
#     path `/usr/share/nginx/html`, read-only:
#         -v /my/content:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro

# Start/stop/delete container
podman start mycontainer
podman stop mycontainer
podman rm mycontainer
# (`podman start` will start in detached mode.)

# Inspect container
podman inspect mycontainer
# Inspect a container's port mappings
# (TODO: Is this needed since ps already does this)
podman port mycontainer
# Inspect a container's logs
podman logs mycontainer
# Inspect a container's PIDs
podman top mycontainer

# Open a shell in a container
podman exec -it mycontainer bash
podman exec -it mycontainer sh

Pod management:

# List all pods
podman pod ls

# Create pods/containers/volumes from Kubernetes YML
podman kube play infile.yml

# Generate a Kubernetes YML from an existing container/pod
podman kube generate mycontainer > outfile.yml
podman kube generate mypod > outfile.yml

# Start/stop/restart/delete pods
podman pod start mypod
podman pod stop mypod
podman pod restart mypod
podman pod rm mypod

Get podman info/versions:

podman info

More commands (I haven’t had to use these yet):

podman login REGISTRY_NAME
podman build -t USERNAME/IMAGE_NAME .
podman push USERNAME/IMAGE_NAME

Containerfile/Dockerfile Syntax

TODO

Kubernetes YAML Syntax

TODO