![PODMAN logo](../../logo/podman-logo-source.svg) # Basic Setup and Use of Podman Podman is a utility provided as part of the libpod library. It can be used to create and maintain containers. The following tutorial will teach you how to set up Podman and perform some basic commands with Podman. **NOTE**: the code samples are intended to be run as a non-root user, and use `sudo` where root escalation is required. ## Installing Podman For installing or building Podman, please see the [installation instructions](install.md). ## Familiarizing yourself with Podman ### Running a sample container This sample container will run a very basic httpd server that serves only its index page. ```console podman run -dt -p 8080:8080/tcp -e HTTPD_VAR_RUN=/var/run/httpd -e HTTPD_MAIN_CONF_D_PATH=/etc/httpd/conf.d \ -e HTTPD_MAIN_CONF_PATH=/etc/httpd/conf \ -e HTTPD_CONTAINER_SCRIPTS_PATH=/usr/share/container-scripts/httpd/ \ registry.fedoraproject.org/f27/httpd /usr/bin/run-httpd ``` Because the container is being run in detached mode, represented by the *-d* in the `podman run` command, Podman will print the container ID after it has run. Note that we use port forwarding to be able to access the HTTP server. For successful running at least slirp4netns v0.3.0 is needed. ### Listing running containers The Podman *ps* command is used to list creating and running containers. ```console podman ps ``` Note: If you add *-a* to the *ps* command, Podman will show all containers. ### Inspecting a running container You can "inspect" a running container for metadata and details about itself. We can even use the inspect subcommand to see what IP address was assigned to the container. As the container is running in rootless mode, an IP address is not assigned and the value will be listed as "none" in the output from inspect. ```console $ podman inspect -l | grep IPAddress\": "SecondaryIPAddresses": null, "IPAddress": "", ``` Note: The -l is a convenience argument for **latest container**. You can also use the container's ID instead of -l. ### Testing the httpd server Now that we have the IP address of the container, we can test the network communication between the host operating system and the container using curl. The following command should display the index page of our containerized httpd server. ```console curl http://:8080 ``` ### Viewing the container's logs You can view the container's logs with Podman as well: ```console $ sudo podman logs --latest 10.88.0.1 - - [07/Feb/2018:15:22:11 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 612 "-" "curl/7.55.1" "-" 10.88.0.1 - - [07/Feb/2018:15:22:30 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 612 "-" "curl/7.55.1" "-" 10.88.0.1 - - [07/Feb/2018:15:22:30 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 612 "-" "curl/7.55.1" "-" 10.88.0.1 - - [07/Feb/2018:15:22:31 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 612 "-" "curl/7.55.1" "-" 10.88.0.1 - - [07/Feb/2018:15:22:31 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 612 "-" "curl/7.55.1" "-" ``` ### Viewing the container's pids And you can observe the httpd pid in the container with *top*. ```console $ sudo podman top UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD 0 31873 31863 0 09:21 ? 00:00:00 nginx: master process nginx -g daemon off; 101 31889 31873 0 09:21 ? 00:00:00 nginx: worker process ``` ### Checkpointing the container Checkpointing a container stops the container while writing the state of all processes in the container to disk. With this a container can later be restored and continue running at exactly the same point in time as the checkpoint. This capability requires CRIU 3.11 or later installed on the system. To checkpoint the container use: ```console sudo podman container checkpoint ``` ### Restoring the container Restoring a container is only possible for a previously checkpointed container. The restored container will continue to run at exactly the same point in time it was checkpointed. To restore the container use: ```console sudo podman container restore ``` After being restored, the container will answer requests again as it did before checkpointing. ```console curl http://:8080 ``` ### Migrate the container To live migrate a container from one host to another the container is checkpointed on the source system of the migration, transferred to the destination system and then restored on the destination system. When transferring the checkpoint, it is possible to specify an output-file. On the source system: ```console sudo podman container checkpoint -e /tmp/checkpoint.tar.gz scp /tmp/checkpoint.tar.gz :/tmp ``` On the destination system: ```console sudo podman container restore -i /tmp/checkpoint.tar.gz ``` After being restored, the container will answer requests again as it did before checkpointing. This time the container will continue to run on the destination system. ```console curl http://:8080 ``` ### Stopping the container To stop the httpd container: ```console sudo podman stop --latest ``` You can also check the status of one or more containers using the *ps* subcommand. In this case, we should use the *-a* argument to list all containers. ```console sudo podman ps -a ``` ### Removing the container To remove the httpd container: ```console sudo podman rm --latest ``` You can verify the deletion of the container by running *podman ps -a*. ## Integration Tests For more information on how to setup and run the integration tests in your environment, checkout the Integration Tests [README.md](../../test/README.md) ## More information For more information on Podman and its subcommands, checkout the asciiart demos on the [README.md](../../README.md#commands) page.