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diff --git a/remote_client.md b/remote_client.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..be5c918c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/remote_client.md @@ -0,0 +1,77 @@ +# Podman remote-client tutorial + +## What is the remote-client + +First and foremost, the remote-client is under heavy development. We are adding new +commands and functions frequently. We also are working on a rootless implementation that +does not require privileged users. + +The purpose of the Podman remote-client is to allow users to interact with a Podman "backend" +while on a separate client. The command line interface of the remote client is exactly the +same as the regular Podman commands with the exception of some flags being removed as they +do not apply to the remote-client. + +## What you need +To use the remote-client, you will need a binary for your client and a Podman "backend"; hereafter +referred to as the Podman node. In this context, a Podman node is a Linux system with Podman +installed on it and the varlink service activated. You will also need to be able to ssh into this +system as a user with privileges to the varlink socket (more on this later). + +## Building the remote client +At this time, the remote-client is not being packaged for any distribution. It must be built from +source. To set up your build environment, see [Installation notes](install.md) and follow the +section [Building from scratch](install.md#building-from-scratch). Once you can successfully +build the regular Podman binary, you can now build the remote-client. +``` +$ make podman-remote +``` +Like building the regular Podman, the resulting binary will be in the *bin* directory. This is the binary +you will run on the remote node later in the instructions. + +## Setting up the remote and Podman nodes + +To use the remote-client, you must perform some setup on both the remote and Podman nodes. In this case, +the remote node refers to where the remote-client is being run; and the Podman node refers to where +Podman and its storage reside. + +### Podman node setup +The Podman node must have Podman (not the remote-client) installed as normal. If your system uses systemd, +then simply start the Podman varlink socket. +``` +$ sudo systemctl start io.podman.socket +``` + +If your system cannot use systemd, then you can manually establish the varlink socket with the Podman +command: +``` +$ sudo podman --log-level debug varlink --timeout 0 unix://run/podman/io.podman +``` + +### Required permissions +For now, the remote-client requires that you be able to run a privileged Podman and have privileged ssh +access to the remote system. This limitation is being worked on. + +### Remote node setup + +#### Initiate an ssh session to the Podman node +To use the remote client, we must establish an ssh connection to the Podman server. We will also use +that session to bind the remote varlink socket locally. + +``` +$ ssh -L 127.0.0.1:1234:/run/podman/io.podman root@remotehost +``` +Note here we are binding the Podman socket to a local TCP socket on port 1234. + +#### Running the remote client +With the ssh session established, we can now run the remote client in a different terminal window. You +must inform Podman where to look for the bound socket you created in the previous step using an +environment variable. + +``` +$ PODMAN_VARLINK_ADDRESS="tcp:127.0.0.1:1234" bin/podman-remote images +REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE +docker.io/library/ubuntu latest 47b19964fb50 2 weeks ago 90.7 MB +docker.io/library/alpine latest caf27325b298 3 weeks ago 5.8 MB +quay.io/cevich/gcloud_centos latest 641dad61989a 5 weeks ago 489 MB +k8s.gcr.io/pause 3.1 da86e6ba6ca1 14 months ago 747 kB +``` |