Skip to main content

Get Started with Podman

First Things First: Installing Podman

For installing or building Podman, please see the installation instructions:

Basic Resources

Getting Help

Help & manpages

For more details, you can review the manpages:

$ man podman 
$ man podman subcommand

To get some help and find out how Podman is working, you can use the help.

$ podman --help # get a list of all commands 
$ podman subcommand --help # get info on a command

Please also reference the Podman Troubleshooting Guide to find known issues and tips on how to solve common configuration mistakes.

Searching, pulling, and listing images

$ podman search httpd 
  INDEX       NAME                                  DESCRIPTION                    STARS OFFICIAL AUTOMATED
  docker.io   docker.io/library/httpd               The Apache HTTP Server Project  3762             [OK]
  docker.io   docker.io/centos/httpd-24-centos7     Platform for running Apache h... 40
  quay.io     quay.io/centos7/httpd-24-centos-7     Platform for running Apache h... 0               [OK]
  docker.io   docker.io/centos/httpd                                                 34              [OK]
  redhat.com  registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/httpd                                  0
  quay.io     quay.io/redhattraining/httpd-parent                                    0               [OK]
  


$ podman search httpd --filter=is-official
  INDEX       NAME                                  DESCRIPTION                    STARS OFFICIAL AUTOMATED
  docker.io   docker.io/library/httpd               The Apache HTTP Server Project  3762    [OK]
  $ podman pull docker.io/library/httpd
  Trying to pull docker.io/library/httpd:latest...
  Getting image source signatures
  Copying blob ab86dc02235d done  
  Copying blob ba1caf8ba86c done  
  Copying blob eff15d958d66 done  
  Copying blob 635a49ba2501 done  
  Copying blob 600feb748d3c done  
  Copying config d294bb32c2 done  
  Writing manifest to image destination
  Storing signatures
  d294bb32c2073ecb5fb27e7802a1e5bec334af69cac361c27e6cb8546fdd14e7



$ podman images
  REPOSITORY               TAG         IMAGE ID      CREATED       SIZE
  docker.io/library/httpd  latest      d294bb32c207  12 hours ago  148 MB

Running a container & listing running containers

This sample container will run a very basic httpd server that serves only its index page.

Running a container

$ podman run -dt -p 8080:80/tcp docker.io/library/httpd
Note:

Because the container is being run in detached mode, represented by the -d in the podman run command, Podman will run the container in the background and print the container ID after it has executed the command. The -t also adds a pseudo-tty to run arbitrary commands in an interactive shell.

Also, 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 created and running containers.

$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                           COMMAND           CREATED       STATUS      PORTS                 NAMES
01c44968199f  docker.io/library/httpd:latest  httpd-foreground  1 minute ago  Up 1 minute 0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp  laughing_bob
Note:

If you add -a to the podman ps command, Podman will show all containers (created, exited, running, etc.).

Testing the httpd container

As you are able to see, the container does not have an IP Address assigned. The container is reachable via its published port on your local machine.

$ curl http://localhost:8080

From another machine, you need to use the IP Address of the host, running the container.

$ curl http://<IP_Address>:8080
Note:

Instead of using curl, you can also point a browser to http://localhost:8080.