auto updates

Add support to auto-update containers running in systemd units as
generated with `podman generate systemd --new`.

`podman auto-update` looks up containers with a specified
"io.containers.autoupdate" label (i.e., the auto-update policy).

If the label is present and set to "image", Podman reaches out to the
corresponding registry to check if the image has been updated.  We
consider an image to be updated if the digest in the local storage is
different than the one of the remote image.  If an image must be
updated, Podman pulls it down and restarts the container.  Note that the
restarting sequence relies on systemd.

At container-creation time, Podman looks up the "PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT"
environment variables and stores it verbatim in the container's label.
This variable is now set by all systemd units generated by
`podman-generate-systemd` and is set to `%n` (i.e., the name of systemd
unit starting the container).  This data is then being used in the
auto-update sequence to instruct systemd (via DBUS) to restart the unit
and hence to restart the container.

Note that this implementation of auto-updates relies on systemd and
requires a fully-qualified image reference to be used to create the
container.  This enforcement is necessary to know which image to
actually check and pull.  If we used an image ID, we would not know
which image to check/pull anymore.

Fixes: #3575
Signed-off-by: Valentin Rothberg <rothberg@redhat.com>

2 files changed, 47 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/source/markdown/podman-auto-update.1.md b/docs/source/markdown/podman-auto-update.1.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..93ad22f76
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/source/markdown/podman-auto-update.1.md
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+% podman-auto-update(1)
+
+## NAME
+podman-auto-update - Auto update containers according to their auto-update policy
+
+## SYNOPSIS
+**podman auto-update**
+
+## DESCRIPTION
+`podman auto-update` looks up containers with a specified "io.containers.autoupdate" label (i.e., the auto-update policy).
+
+If the label is present and set to "image", Podman reaches out to the corresponding registry to check if the image has been updated.
+An image is considered updated if the digest in the local storage is different than the one of the remote image.
+If an image must be updated, Podman pulls it down and restarts the systemd unit executing the container.
+
+At container-creation time, Podman looks up the "PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT" environment variables and stores it verbatim in the container's label.
+This variable is now set by all systemd units generated by `podman-generate-systemd` and is set to `%n` (i.e., the name of systemd unit starting the container).
+This data is then being used in the auto-update sequence to instruct systemd (via DBUS) to restart the unit and hence to restart the container.
+
+Note that `podman auto-update` relies on systemd and requires a fully-qualified image reference (e.g., quay.io/podman/stable:latest) to be used to create the container.
+This enforcement is necessary to know which image to actually check and pull.
+If an image ID was used, Podman would not know which image to check/pull anymore.
+
+## EXAMPLES
+
+```
+# Start a container
+$ podman run -d busybox:latest top
+bc219740a210455fa27deacc96d50a9e20516492f1417507c13ce1533dbdcd9d
+
+# Generate a systemd unit for this container
+$ podman generate systemd --new --files bc219740a210455fa27deacc96d50a9e20516492f1417507c13ce1533dbdcd9d
+/home/user/containers/libpod/container-bc219740a210455fa27deacc96d50a9e20516492f1417507c13ce1533dbdcd9d.service
+
+# Load the new systemd unit and start it
+$ mv ./container-bc219740a210455fa27deacc96d50a9e20516492f1417507c13ce1533dbdcd9d.service ~/.config/systemd/user
+$ systemctl --user daemon-reload
+$ systemctl --user start container-bc219740a210455fa27deacc96d50a9e20516492f1417507c13ce1533dbdcd9d.service
+
+# Auto-update the container
+$ podman auto-update
+container-bc219740a210455fa27deacc96d50a9e20516492f1417507c13ce1533dbdcd9d.service
+```
+
+## SEE ALSO
+podman(1), podman-generate-systemd(1), podman-run(1), systemd.unit(5)
diff --git a/docs/source/markdown/podman.1.md b/docs/source/markdown/podman.1.md
index 86d246e87..5797535f7 100644
--- a/docs/source/markdown/podman.1.md
+++ b/docs/source/markdown/podman.1.md
@@ -154,6 +154,7 @@ the exit codes follow the `chroot` standard, see below:
 | Command                                          | Description                                                                 |
 | ------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 | [podman-attach(1)](podman-attach.1.md)           | Attach to a running container.                                              |
+| [podman-auto-update(1)](podman-auto-update.1.md) | Auto update containers according to their auto-update policy                |
 | [podman-build(1)](podman-build.1.md)             | Build a container image using a Containerfile.                              |
 | [podman-commit(1)](podman-commit.1.md)           | Create new image based on the changed container.                            |
 | [podman-container(1)](podman-container.1.md)     | Manage containers.                                                          |