podman-remote - Man Page

A remote CLI for Podman: A Simple management tool for pods, containers and images.

Podman (Pod Manager) is a fully featured container engine that is a simple daemonless tool. Podman provides a Docker-CLI comparable command line that eases the transition from other container engines and allows the management of pods, containers and images. Simply put: alias docker=podman. Most Podman commands can be run as a regular user, without requiring additional privileges.

Podman uses Buildah(1) internally to create container images. Both tools share image (not container) storage, hence each can use or manipulate images (but not containers) created by the other.

Podman-remote provides a local client interacting with a Podman backend node through a RESTful API tunneled through a ssh connection. In this context, a Podman node is a Linux system with Podman installed on it and the API service activated. Credentials for this session can be passed in using flags, environment variables, or in containers.conf.

The containers.conf file is placed under $HOME/.config/containers/containers.conf on Linux and Mac and %APPDATA%\containers\containers.conf on Windows.

podman [Global Options]

Global Options

--connection=name, -c

Remote connection name

Overrides environment variable Container_connection if set.

--help, -h

Print usage statement

--identity=path

Path to ssh identity file. If the identity file has been encrypted, Podman prompts the user for the passphrase. If no identity file is provided and no user is given, Podman defaults to the user running the podman command. Podman prompts for the login password on the remote server.

Identity value resolution precedence:
- command line value
- environment variable Container_sshkey, if Container_host is found
- containers.conf

--log-level=level

Log messages above specified level: debug, info, warn, error (default), fatal or panic

--url=value

URL to access Podman service (default from containers.conf, rootless "unix:///run/user/$UID/podman/podman.sock" or as root "unix:///run/podman/podman.sock).

Container_host is of the format <schema>://[<user[:<password>]@]<host>[:<port>][<path>]
CONTAINER_PROXY is of the format <socks5|socks5h>://[<user[:<password>]@]<host>[:<port>]

Details:
- schema is one of:
* ssh (default): a local unix(7) socket on the named host and port, reachable via SSH
* tcp: an unencrypted, unauthenticated TCP connection to the named host and port, can work with proxy if CONTAINER_PROXY is set
* unix: a local unix(7) socket at the specified path, or the default for the user
- user defaults to either root or the current running user (ssh only)
- password has no default (ssh only)
- host must be provided and is either the IP or name of the machine hosting the Podman service (ssh and tcp)
- port defaults to 22 (ssh and tcp)
- path defaults to either /run/podman/podman.sock, or /run/user/$UID/podman/podman.sock if running rootless (unix), or must be explicitly specified (ssh)
- CONTAINER_PROXY: use proxy (socks5 or socks5h) to access Podman service (tcp only)

URL value resolution precedence:
- command line value
- environment variable Container_host
- engine.service_destinations table in containers.conf, excluding the /usr/share/containers directory
- unix:///run/podman/podman.sock

Remote connections use local containers.conf for default.

Some example URL values in valid formats:
- unix:///run/podman/podman.sock
- unix:///run/user/$UID/podman/podman.sock
- ssh://notroot@localhost:22/run/user/$UID/podman/podman.sock
- ssh://root@localhost:22/run/podman/podman.sock
- tcp://localhost:34451
- tcp://127.0.0.1:34451

--version

Print the version

Environment Variables

Podman can set up environment variables from env of [engine] table in containers.conf. These variables can be overridden by passing environment variables before the podman commands.

Containers_conf

Set default locations of containers.conf file

Container_connection

Set default --connection value to access Podman service.

Container_host

Set default --url value to access Podman service.

Container_sshkey

Set default --identity path to ssh key file value used to access Podman service.

Exit Status

The exit code from podman gives information about why the container failed to run or why it exited. When podman commands exit with a non-zero code, the exit codes follow the chroot standard, see below:

125 The error is with podman itself

$ podman run --foo busybox; echo $?
Error: unknown flag: --foo
125

126 Executing a contained command and the command cannot be invoked

$ podman run busybox /etc; echo $?
Error: container_linux.go:346: starting container process caused "exec: \"/etc\": permission denied": OCI runtime error
126

127 Executing a contained command and the command cannot be found
$ podman run busybox foo; echo $?
Error: container_linux.go:346: starting container process caused "exec: \"foo\": executable file not found in $PATH": OCI runtime error
127

Exit code contained command exit code

$ podman run busybox /bin/sh -c 'exit 3'; echo $?
3

Commands

Command	Description
podman-attach(1)	Attach to a running container.
podman-build(1)	Build a container image using a Dockerfile.
podman-commit(1)	Create new image based on the changed container.
podman-container(1)	Manage containers.
podman-cp(1)	Copy files/folders between a container and the local filesystem.
podman-create(1)	Create a new container.
podman-diff(1)	Inspect changes on a container or image's filesystem.
podman-events(1)	Monitor Podman events
podman-export(1)	Export a container's filesystem contents as a tar archive.
podman-generate(1)	Generate structured data based on containers and pods.
podman-healthcheck(1)	Manage healthchecks for containers
podman-history(1)	Show the history of an image.
podman-image(1)	Manage images.
podman-images(1)	List images in local storage.
podman-import(1)	Import a tarball and save it as a filesystem image.
podman-info(1)	Display Podman related system information.
podman-init(1)	Initialize a container
podman-inspect(1)	Display a container or image's configuration.
podman-kill(1)	Kill the main process in one or more containers.
podman-load(1)	Load an image from a container image archive into container storage.
podman-logs(1)	Display the logs of a container.
podman-pause(1)	Pause one or more containers.
podman-pod(1)	Management tool for groups of containers, called pods.
podman-port(1)	List port mappings for a container.
podman-ps(1)	Print out information about containers.
podman-pull(1)	Pull an image from a registry.
podman-push(1)	Push an image from local storage to elsewhere.
podman-restart(1)	Restart one or more containers.
podman-rm(1)	Remove one or more containers.
podman-rmi(1)	Remove one or more locally stored images.
podman-run(1)	Run a command in a new container.
podman-save(1)	Save an image to a container archive.
podman-start(1)	Start one or more containers.
podman-stop(1)	Stop one or more running containers.
podman-system(1)	Manage podman.
podman-tag(1)	Add an additional name to a local image.
podman-top(1)	Display the running processes of a container.
podman-unpause(1)	Unpause one or more containers.
podman-version(1)	Display the Podman version information.
podman-volume(1)	Manage Volumes.

Files

containers.conf ($HOME/.config/containers/containers.conf)

Podman has builtin defaults for command line options. These defaults can be overridden using the containers.conf configuration files.

Users can modify defaults by creating the $HOME/.config/containers/containers.conf file. Podman merges its builtin defaults with the specified fields from this file, if it exists. Fields specified in the users file override the built-in defaults.

Podman uses builtin defaults if no containers.conf file is found.

Referenced By

podman-image-scp(1).

The man page docker-remote(1) is an alias of podman-remote(1).