podman-create(1)

NAME

podman-create - Create a new container

SYNOPSIS

podman create [options] image [command [arg ...]]

podman container create [options] image [command [arg ...]]

DESCRIPTION

Creates a writable container layer over the specified image and prepares it for running the specified command. The container ID is then printed to STDOUT. This is similar to podman run -d except the container is never started. You can then use the podman start container command to start the container at any point.

The initial status of the container created with podman create is 'created'.

Default settings for flags are defined in containers.conf. Most settings for remote connections use the server's containers.conf, except when documented in man pages.

IMAGE

The image is specified using transport:path format. If no transport is specified, the docker (container registry) transport will be used by default. For remote Podman, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines, docker is the only allowed transport.

dir:path
  An existing local directory path storing the manifest, layer tarballs and signatures as individual files. This is a non-standardized format, primarily useful for debugging or noninvasive container inspection.

    $ podman save --format docker-dir fedora -o /tmp/fedora
    $ podman create dir:/tmp/fedora echo hello

docker://docker-reference (Default)
  An image reference stored in a remote container image registry. Example: "quay.io/podman/stable:latest". The reference can include a path to a specific registry; if it does not, the registries listed in registries.conf will be queried to find a matching image. By default, credentials from podman login (stored at $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/containers/auth.json by default) will be used to authenticate; otherwise it falls back to using credentials in $HOME/.docker/config.json.

    $ podman create registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora:latest echo hello

docker-archive:path[:docker-reference] An image stored in the docker save formatted file. docker-reference is only used when creating such a file, and it must not contain a digest.

    $ podman save --format docker-archive fedora -o /tmp/fedora
    $ podman create docker-archive:/tmp/fedora echo hello

docker-daemon:docker-reference
  An image in docker-reference format stored in the docker daemon internal storage. The docker-reference can also be an image ID (docker-daemon:algo:digest).

    $ sudo docker pull fedora
    $ sudo podman create docker-daemon:docker.io/library/fedora echo hello

oci-archive:path:tag
  An image in a directory compliant with the "Open Container Image Layout Specification" at the specified path and specified with a tag.

    $ podman save --format oci-archive fedora -o /tmp/fedora
    $ podman create oci-archive:/tmp/fedora echo hello

OPTIONS

  --add-host=host:ip

Add a custom host-to-IP mapping (host:ip)

Add a line to /etc/hosts. The format is hostname:ip. The --add-host option can be set multiple times. Conflicts with the --no-hosts option.

  --annotation=key=value

Add an annotation to the container. This option can be set multiple times.

  --arch=ARCH

Override the architecture, defaults to hosts, of the image to be pulled. For example, arm. Unless overridden, subsequent lookups of the same image in the local storage will match this architecture, regardless of the host.

  --attach, -a=stdin | stdout | stderr

Attach to STDIN, STDOUT or STDERR.

In foreground mode (the default when -d is not specified), podman run can start the process in the container and attach the console to the process's standard input, output, and error. It can even pretend to be a TTY (this is what most command-line executables expect) and pass along signals. The -a option can be set for each of stdin, stdout, and stderr.

  --authfile=path

Path of the authentication file. Default is ${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}/containers/auth.json, which is set using podman login. If the authorization state is not found there, $HOME/.docker/config.json is checked, which is set using docker login.

Note: There is also the option to override the default path of the authentication file by setting the REGISTRY_AUTH_FILE environment variable. This can be done with export REGISTRY_AUTH_FILE=path.

  --blkio-weight=weight

Block IO relative weight. The weight is a value between 10 and 1000.

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --blkio-weight-device=device:weight

Block IO relative device weight.

  --cap-add=capability

Add Linux capabilities.

  --cap-drop=capability

Drop Linux capabilities.

  --cgroup-conf=KEY=VALUE

When running on cgroup v2, specify the cgroup file to write to and its value. For example --cgroup-conf=memory.high=1073741824 sets the memory.high limit to 1GB.

  --cgroup-parent=path

Path to cgroups under which the cgroup for the container will be created. If the path is not absolute, the path is considered to be relative to the cgroups path of the init process. Cgroups will be created if they do not already exist.

  --cgroupns=mode

Set the cgroup namespace mode for the container.

    •   host: use the host's cgroup namespace inside the container.

    •   container:id: join the namespace of the specified container.

    •   private: create a new cgroup namespace.

    •   ns:path: join the namespace at the specified path.

If the host uses cgroups v1, the default is set to host. On cgroups v2, the default is private.

  --cgroups=how

Determines whether the container will create CGroups.

Default is enabled.

The enabled option will create a new cgroup under the cgroup-parent. The disabled option will force the container to not create CGroups, and thus conflicts with CGroup options (--cgroupns and --cgroup-parent). The no-conmon option disables a new CGroup only for the conmon process. The split option splits the current CGroup in two sub-cgroups: one for conmon and one for the container payload. It is not possible to set --cgroup-parent with split.

  --chrootdirs=path

Path to a directory inside the container that should be treated as a chroot directory. Any Podman managed file (e.g., /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/hosts, etc/hostname) that is mounted into the root directory will be mounted into that location as well. Multiple directories should be separated with a comma.

  --cidfile=file

Write the container ID to file.

  --conmon-pidfile=file

Write the pid of the conmon process to a file. As conmon runs in a separate process than Podman, this is necessary when using systemd to restart Podman containers. (This option is not available with the remote Podman client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines)

  --cpu-period=limit

Set the CPU period for the Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS), which is a duration in microseconds. Once the container's CPU quota is used up, it will not be scheduled to run until the current period ends. Defaults to 100000 microseconds.

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --cpu-quota=limit

Limit the CPU Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) quota.

Limit the container's CPU usage. By default, containers run with the full CPU resource. The limit is a number in microseconds. If a number is provided, the container will be allowed to use that much CPU time until the CPU period ends (controllable via --cpu-period).

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --cpu-rt-period=microseconds

Limit the CPU real-time period in microseconds.

Limit the container's Real Time CPU usage. This option tells the kernel to restrict the container's Real Time CPU usage to the period specified.

This option is only supported on cgroups V1 rootful systems.

  --cpu-rt-runtime=microseconds

Limit the CPU real-time runtime in microseconds.

Limit the containers Real Time CPU usage. This option tells the kernel to limit the amount of time in a given CPU period Real Time tasks may consume. Ex: Period of 1,000,000us and Runtime of 950,000us means that this container could consume 95% of available CPU and leave the remaining 5% to normal priority tasks.

The sum of all runtimes across containers cannot exceed the amount allotted to the parent cgroup.

This option is only supported on cgroups V1 rootful systems.

  --cpu-shares, -c=shares

CPU shares (relative weight).

By default, all containers get the same proportion of CPU cycles. This proportion can be modified by changing the container's CPU share weighting relative to the combined weight of all the running containers. Default weight is 1024.

The proportion will only apply when CPU-intensive processes are running. When tasks in one container are idle, other containers can use the left-over CPU time. The actual amount of CPU time will vary depending on the number of containers running on the system.

For example, consider three containers, one has a cpu-share of 1024 and two others have a cpu-share setting of 512. When processes in all three containers attempt to use 100% of CPU, the first container would receive 50% of the total CPU time. If a fourth container is added with a cpu-share of 1024, the first container only gets 33% of the CPU. The remaining containers receive 16.5%, 16.5% and 33% of the CPU.

On a multi-core system, the shares of CPU time are distributed over all CPU cores. Even if a container is limited to less than 100% of CPU time, it can use 100% of each individual CPU core.

For example, consider a system with more than three cores. If the container C0 is started with --cpu-shares=512 running one process, and another container C1 with --cpu-shares=1024 running two processes, this can result in the following division of CPU shares:
PID | container | CPU | CPU share
100 | C0 | 0 | 100% of CPU0
101 | C1 | 1 | 100% of CPU1
102 | C1 | 2 | 100% of CPU2

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --cpus=number

Number of CPUs. The default is 0.0 which means no limit. This is shorthand for --cpu-period and --cpu-quota, so you may only set either --cpus or --cpu-period and --cpu-quota.

On some systems, changing the CPU limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --cpuset-cpus=number

CPUs in which to allow execution. Can be specified as a comma-separated list (e.g. 0,1), as a range (e.g. 0-3), or any combination thereof (e.g. 0-3,7,11-15).

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --cpuset-mems=nodes

Memory nodes (MEMs) in which to allow execution (0-3, 0,1). Only effective on NUMA systems.

If there are four memory nodes on the system (0-3), use --cpuset-mems=0,1 then processes in the container will only use memory from the first two memory nodes.

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --device=host-device[:container-device][:permissions]

Add a host device to the container. Optional permissions parameter can be used to specify device permissions by combining r for read, w for write, and m for mknod(2).

Example: --device=/dev/sdc:/dev/xvdc:rwm.

Note: if host-device is a symbolic link then it will be resolved first. The container will only store the major and minor numbers of the host device.

Podman may load kernel modules required for using the specified device. The devices that Podman will load modules for when necessary are: /dev/fuse.

In rootless mode, the new device is bind mounted in the container from the host rather than Podman creating it within the container space. Because the bind mount retains its SELinux label on SELinux systems, the container can get permission denied when accessing the mounted device. Modify SELinux settings to allow containers to use all device labels via the following command:

$ sudo setsebool -P container_use_devices=true

Note: if the user only has access rights via a group, accessing the device from inside a rootless container will fail. Use the --group-add keep-groups flag to pass the user's supplementary group access into the container.

  --device-cgroup-rule="type major:minor mode"

Add a rule to the cgroup allowed devices list. The rule is expected to be in the format specified in the Linux kernel documentation (Documentation/cgroup-v1/devices.txt):
       - type: a (all), c (char), or b (block);
       - major and minor: either a number, or * for all;
       - mode: a composition of r (read), w (write), and m (mknod(2)).

  --device-read-bps=path:rate

Limit read rate (in bytes per second) from a device (e.g. --device-read-bps=/dev/sda:1mb).

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --device-read-iops=path:rate

Limit read rate (in IO operations per second) from a device (e.g. --device-read-iops=/dev/sda:1000).

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --device-write-bps=path:rate

Limit write rate (in bytes per second) to a device (e.g. --device-write-bps=/dev/sda:1mb).

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --device-write-iops=path:rate

Limit write rate (in IO operations per second) to a device (e.g. --device-write-iops=/dev/sda:1000).

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --disable-content-trust

This is a Docker-specific option to disable image verification to a container registry and is not supported by Podman. This option is a NOOP and provided solely for scripting compatibility.

  --dns=ipaddr

Set custom DNS servers.

This option can be used to override the DNS configuration passed to the container. Typically this is necessary when the host DNS configuration is invalid for the container (e.g., 127.0.0.1). When this is the case the --dns flag is necessary for every run.

The special value none can be specified to disable creation of /etc/resolv.conf in the container by Podman. The /etc/resolv.conf file in the image will be used without changes.

This option cannot be combined with --network that is set to none or container:id.

  --dns-option=option

Set custom DNS options. Invalid if using --dns-option with --network that is set to none or container:id.

  --dns-search=domain

Set custom DNS search domains. Invalid if using --dns-search with --network that is set to none or container:id. Use --dns-search=. if you don't wish to set the search domain.

  --entrypoint="command" | '["command", arg1 , ...]'

Overwrite the default ENTRYPOINT of the image.

This option allows you to overwrite the default entrypoint of the image.

The ENTRYPOINT of an image is similar to a COMMAND because it specifies what executable to run when the container starts, but it is (purposely) more difficult to override. The ENTRYPOINT gives a container its default nature or behavior, so that when you set an ENTRYPOINT you can run the container as if it were that binary, complete with default options, and you can pass in more options via the COMMAND. But, sometimes an operator may want to run something else inside the container, so you can override the default ENTRYPOINT at runtime by using a --entrypoint and a string to specify the new ENTRYPOINT.

You need to specify multi option commands in the form of a json string.

  --env, -e=env

Set environment variables.

This option allows arbitrary environment variables that are available for the process to be launched inside of the container. If an environment variable is specified without a value, Podman will check the host environment for a value and set the variable only if it is set on the host. As a special case, if an environment variable ending in * is specified without a value, Podman will search the host environment for variables starting with the prefix and will add those variables to the container.

See Environment ⟨#environment⟩ note below for precedence and examples.

  --env-file=file

Read in a line-delimited file of environment variables.

See Environment ⟨#environment⟩ note below for precedence and examples.

  --env-host

Use host environment inside of the container. See Environment note below for precedence. (This option is not available with the remote Podman client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines)

  --env-merge=env

Preprocess default environment variables for the containers. For example if image contains environment variable hello=world user can preprocess it using --env-merge hello=${hello}-some so new value will be hello=world-some.

  --expose=port

Expose a port, or a range of ports (e.g. --expose=3300-3310) to set up port redirection on the host system.

  --gidmap=container_gid:host_gid:amount

Run the container in a new user namespace using the supplied GID mapping. This option conflicts with the --userns and --subgidname options. This option provides a way to map host GIDs to container GIDs in the same way as --uidmap maps host UIDs to container UIDs. For details see --uidmap.

Note: the --gidmap flag cannot be called in conjunction with the --pod flag as a gidmap cannot be set on the container level when in a pod.

  --group-add=group | keep-groups

Assign additional groups to the primary user running within the container process.

    •   keep-groups is a special flag that tells Podman to keep the supplementary group access.

Allows container to use the user's supplementary group access. If file systems or devices are only accessible by the rootless user's group, this flag tells the OCI runtime to pass the group access into the container. Currently only available with the crun OCI runtime. Note: keep-groups is exclusive, you cannot add any other groups with this flag. (Not available for remote commands, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines)

  --health-cmd="command" | '["command", arg1 , ...]'

Set or alter a healthcheck command for a container. The command is a command to be executed inside your container that determines your container health. The command is required for other healthcheck options to be applied. A value of none disables existing healthchecks.

Multiple options can be passed in the form of a JSON array; otherwise, the command will be interpreted as an argument to /bin/sh -c.

  --health-interval=interval

Set an interval for the healthchecks. An interval of disable results in no automatic timer setup. The default is 30s.

  --health-on-failure=action

Action to take once the container transitions to an unhealthy state. The default is none.

    •   none: Take no action.

    •   kill: Kill the container.

    •   restart: Restart the container. Do not combine the restart action with the --restart flag. When running inside of a systemd unit, consider using the kill or stop action instead to make use of systemd's restart policy.

    •   stop: Stop the container.

  --health-retries=retries

The number of retries allowed before a healthcheck is considered to be unhealthy. The default value is 3.

  --health-start-period=period

The initialization time needed for a container to bootstrap. The value can be expressed in time format like 2m3s. The default value is 0s.

  --health-timeout=timeout

The maximum time allowed to complete the healthcheck before an interval is considered failed. Like start-period, the value can be expressed in a time format such as 1m22s. The default value is 30s.

  --help

Print usage statement

  --hostname, -h=name

Container host name

Sets the container host name that is available inside the container. Can only be used with a private UTS namespace --uts=private (default). If --pod is specified and the pod shares the UTS namespace (default) the pod's hostname will be used.

  --hostuser=name

Add a user account to /etc/passwd from the host to the container. The Username or UID must exist on the host system.

  --http-proxy

By default proxy environment variables are passed into the container if set for the Podman process. This can be disabled by setting the value to false. The environment variables passed in include http_proxy, https_proxy, ftp_proxy, no_proxy, and also the upper case versions of those. This option is only needed when the host system must use a proxy but the container should not use any proxy. Proxy environment variables specified for the container in any other way will override the values that would have been passed through from the host. (Other ways to specify the proxy for the container include passing the values with the --env flag, or hard coding the proxy environment at container build time.) (This option is not available with the remote Podman client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines)

Defaults to true.

  --image-volume=bind | tmpfs | ignore

Tells Podman how to handle the builtin image volumes. Default is bind.

    •   bind: An anonymous named volume will be created and mounted into the container.

    •   tmpfs: The volume is mounted onto the container as a tmpfs, which allows the users to create content that disappears when the container is stopped.

    •   ignore: All volumes are just ignored and no action is taken.

  --init

Run an init inside the container that forwards signals and reaps processes. The container-init binary is mounted at /run/podman-init. Mounting over /run will hence break container execution.

  --init-ctr=type

(Pods only). When using pods, create an init style container, which is run after the infra container is started but before regular pod containers are started. Init containers are useful for running setup operations for the pod's applications.

Valid values for init-ctr type are always or once. The always value means the container will run with each and every pod start, whereas the once value means the container will only run once when the pod is started and then the container is removed.

Init containers are only run on pod start. Restarting a pod will not execute any init containers should they be present. Furthermore, init containers can only be created in a pod when that pod is not running.

  --init-path=path

Path to the container-init binary.

  --interactive, -i

When set to true, keep stdin open even if not attached. The default is false.

  --ip=ipv4

Specify a static IPv4 address for the container, for example 10.88.64.128. This option can only be used if the container is joined to only a single network - i.e., --network=network-name is used at most once - and if the container is not joining another container's network namespace via --network=container:id. The address must be within the network's IP address pool (default 10.88.0.0/16).

To specify multiple static IP addresses per container, set multiple networks using the --network option with a static IP address specified for each using the ip mode for that option.

  --ip6=ipv6

Specify a static IPv6 address for the container, for example fd46:db93:aa76:ac37::10. This option can only be used if the container is joined to only a single network - i.e., --network=network-name is used at most once - and if the container is not joining another container's network namespace via --network=container:id. The address must be within the network's IPv6 address pool.

To specify multiple static IPv6 addresses per container, set multiple networks using the --network option with a static IPv6 address specified for each using the ip6 mode for that option.

  --ipc=ipc

Set the IPC namespace mode for a container. The default is to create a private IPC namespace.

    •   "": Use Podman's default, defined in containers.conf.

    •   container:id: reuses another container's shared memory, semaphores, and message queues

    •   host: use the host's shared memory, semaphores, and message queues inside the container. Note: the host mode gives the container full access to local shared memory and is therefore considered insecure.

    •   none: private IPC namespace, with /dev/shm not mounted.

    •   ns:path: path to an IPC namespace to join.

    •   private: private IPC namespace. = shareable: private IPC namespace with a possibility to share it with other containers.

  --label, -l=key=value

Add metadata to a container.

  --label-file=file

Read in a line-delimited file of labels.

  --link-local-ip=ip

Not implemented.

  --log-driver=driver

Logging driver for the container. Currently available options are k8s-file, journald, none and passthrough, with json-file aliased to k8s-file for scripting compatibility. (Default journald).

The podman info command below will display the default log-driver for the system.

    $ podman info --format '{{ .Host.LogDriver }}'
    journald

The passthrough driver passes down the standard streams (stdin, stdout, stderr) to the container. It is not allowed with the remote Podman client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines, and on a tty, since it is vulnerable to attacks via TIOCSTI.

  --log-opt=name=value

Logging driver specific options.

Set custom logging configuration. The following *name*s are supported:

path: specify a path to the log file
    (e.g. --log-opt path=/var/log/container/mycontainer.json);

max-size: specify a max size of the log file
    (e.g. --log-opt max-size=10mb);

tag: specify a custom log tag for the container
    (e.g. --log-opt tag="{{.ImageName}}". It supports the same keys as podman inspect --format. This option is currently supported only by the journald log driver.

  --mac-address=address

Container network interface MAC address (e.g. 92:d0:c6:0a:29:33) This option can only be used if the container is joined to only a single network - i.e., --network=network-name is used at most once - and if the container is not joining another container's network namespace via --network=container:id.

Remember that the MAC address in an Ethernet network must be unique. The IPv6 link-local address will be based on the device's MAC address according to RFC4862.

To specify multiple static MAC addresses per container, set multiple networks using the --network option with a static MAC address specified for each using the mac mode for that option.

  --memory, -m=number[unit]

Memory limit. A unit can be b (bytes), k (kibibytes), m (mebibytes), or g (gibibytes).

Allows the memory available to a container to be constrained. If the host supports swap memory, then the -m memory setting can be larger than physical RAM. If a limit of 0 is specified (not using -m), the container's memory is not limited. The actual limit may be rounded up to a multiple of the operating system's page size (the value would be very large, that's millions of trillions).

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --memory-reservation=number[unit]

Memory soft limit. A unit can be b (bytes), k (kibibytes), m (mebibytes), or g (gibibytes).

After setting memory reservation, when the system detects memory contention or low memory, containers are forced to restrict their consumption to their reservation. So you should always set the value below --memory, otherwise the hard limit will take precedence. By default, memory reservation will be the same as memory limit.

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --memory-swap=number[unit]

A limit value equal to memory plus swap. A unit can be b (bytes), k (kibibytes), m (mebibytes), or g (gibibytes).

Must be used with the -m (--memory) flag. The argument value should always be larger than that of
 -m (--memory) By default, it is set to double the value of --memory.

Set number to -1 to enable unlimited swap.

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

  --memory-swappiness=number

Tune a container's memory swappiness behavior. Accepts an integer between 0 and 100.

This flag is only supported on cgroups V1 rootful systems.

  --mount=type=TYPE,TYPE-SPECIFIC-OPTION[,...]

Attach a filesystem mount to the container

Current supported mount TYPEs are bind, volume, image, tmpfs and devpts. [1] ⟨#Footnote1⟩

       e.g.
       type=bind,source=/path/on/host,destination=/path/in/container
       type=bind,src=/path/on/host,dst=/path/in/container,relabel=shared
       type=bind,src=/path/on/host,dst=/path/in/container,relabel=shared,U=true
       type=volume,source=vol1,destination=/path/in/container,ro=true
       type=tmpfs,tmpfs-size=512M,destination=/path/in/container
       type=image,source=fedora,destination=/fedora-image,rw=true
       type=devpts,destination=/dev/pts
       Common Options:
          · src, source: mount source spec for bind and volume. Mandatory for bind.
          · dst, destination, target: mount destination spec.
       Options specific to volume:
          · ro, readonly: true or false (default).
          . U, chown: true or false (default). Change recursively the owner and group of the source volume based on the UID and GID of the container.
          · idmap: true or false (default).  If specified, create an idmapped mount to the target user namespace in the container.
       Options specific to image:
          · rw, readwrite: true or false (default).
       Options specific to bind:
          · ro, readonly: true or false (default).
          · bind-propagation: shared, slave, private, unbindable, rshared, rslave, runbindable, or rprivate(default). See also mount(2).
          . bind-nonrecursive: do not set up a recursive bind mount. By default it is recursive.
          . relabel: shared, private.
          · idmap: true or false (default).  If specified, create an idmapped mount to the target user namespace in the container.
          . U, chown: true or false (default). Change recursively the owner and group of the source volume based on the UID and GID of the container.
       Options specific to tmpfs:
          · ro, readonly: true or false (default).
          · tmpfs-size: Size of the tmpfs mount in bytes. Unlimited by default in Linux.
          · tmpfs-mode: File mode of the tmpfs in octal. (e.g. 700 or 0700.) Defaults to 1777 in Linux.
          · tmpcopyup: Enable copyup from the image directory at the same location to the tmpfs. Used by default.
          · notmpcopyup: Disable copying files from the image to the tmpfs.
          . U, chown: true or false (default). Change recursively the owner and group of the source volume based on the UID and GID of the container.
       Options specific to devpts:
          · uid: UID of the file owner (default 0).
          · gid: GID of the file owner (default 0).
          · mode: permission mask for the file (default 600).
          · max: maximum number of PTYs (default 1048576).

  --name=name

Assign a name to the container.

The operator can identify a container in three ways:

    •   UUID long identifier (“f78375b1c487e03c9438c729345e54db9d20cfa2ac1fc3494b6eb60872e74778”);

    •   UUID short identifier (“f78375b1c487”);

    •   Name (“jonah”).

Podman generates a UUID for each container, and if a name is not assigned to the container with --name then it will generate a random string name. The name is useful any place you need to identify a container. This works for both background and foreground containers.

  --network=mode, --net

Set the network mode for the container.

Valid mode values are:

    •   bridge[:OPTIONS,...]: Create a network stack on the default bridge. This is the default for rootful containers. It is possible to specify these additional options:

        •   alias=name: Add network-scoped alias for the container.

        •   ip=IPv4: Specify a static ipv4 address for this container.

        •   ip=IPv6: Specify a static ipv6 address for this container.

        •   mac=MAC: Specify a static mac address for this container.

        •   interface_name: Specify a name for the created network interface inside the container.

For example to set a static ipv4 address and a static mac address, use --network bridge:ip=10.88.0.10,mac=44:33:22:11:00:99. - <network name or ID>[:OPTIONS,...]: Connect to a user-defined network; this is the network name or ID from a network created by podman network create. Using the network name implies the bridge network mode. It is possible to specify the same options described under the bridge mode above. You can use the --network option multiple times to specify additional networks. - none: Create a network namespace for the container but do not configure network interfaces for it, thus the container has no network connectivity. - container:id: Reuse another container's network stack. - host: Do not create a network namespace, the container will use the host's network. Note: The host mode gives the container full access to local system services such as D-bus and is therefore considered insecure. - ns:path: Path to a network namespace to join. - private: Create a new namespace for the container. This will use the bridge mode for rootful containers and slirp4netns for rootless ones. - slirp4netns[:OPTIONS,...]: use slirp4netns(1) to create a user network stack. This is the default for rootless containers. It is possible to specify these additional options, they can also be set with network_cmd_options in containers.conf:
  - allow_host_loopback=true|false: Allow slirp4netns to reach the host loopback IP (default is 10.0.2.2 or the second IP from slirp4netns cidr subnet when changed, see the cidr option below). The default is false.
  - mtu=MTU: Specify the MTU to use for this network. (Default is 65520).
  - cidr=CIDR: Specify ip range to use for this network. (Default is 10.0.2.0/24).
  - enable_ipv6=true|false: Enable IPv6. Default is true. (Required for outbound_addr6).
  - outbound_addr=INTERFACE: Specify the outbound interface slirp should bind to (ipv4 traffic only).
  - outbound_addr=IPv4: Specify the outbound ipv4 address slirp should bind to.
  - outbound_addr6=INTERFACE: Specify the outbound interface slirp should bind to (ipv6 traffic only).
  - outbound_addr6=IPv6: Specify the outbound ipv6 address slirp should bind to.
  - port_handler=rootlesskit: Use rootlesskit for port forwarding. Default.
  Note: Rootlesskit changes the source IP address of incoming packets to an IP address in the container network namespace, usually 10.0.2.100. If your application requires the real source IP address, e.g. web server logs, use the slirp4netns port handler. The rootlesskit port handler is also used for rootless containers when connected to user-defined networks.
  - port_handler=slirp4netns: Use the slirp4netns port forwarding, it is slower than rootlesskit but preserves the correct source IP address. This port handler cannot be used for user-defined networks.

Invalid if using --dns, --dns-option, or --dns-search with --network set to none or container:id.

If used together with --pod, the container will not join the pod's network namespace.

  --network-alias=alias

Add a network-scoped alias for the container, setting the alias for all networks that the container joins. To set a name only for a specific network, use the alias option as described under the --network option. If the network has DNS enabled (podman network inspect -f {{.DNSEnabled}} <name>), these aliases can be used for name resolution on the given network. This option can be specified multiple times. NOTE: When using CNI a container will only have access to aliases on the first network that it joins. This limitation does not exist with netavark/aardvark-dns.

  --no-healthcheck

Disable any defined healthchecks for container.

  --no-hosts

Do not create /etc/hosts for the container. By default, Podman will manage /etc/hosts, adding the container's own IP address and any hosts from --add-host. --no-hosts disables this, and the image's /etc/hosts will be preserved unmodified.

This option conflicts with --add-host.

  --oom-kill-disable

Whether to disable OOM Killer for the container or not.

This flag is not supported on cgroups V2 systems.

  --oom-score-adj=num

Tune the host's OOM preferences for containers (accepts values from -1000 to 1000).

  --os=OS

Override the OS, defaults to hosts, of the image to be pulled. For example, windows. Unless overridden, subsequent lookups of the same image in the local storage will match this OS, regardless of the host.

  --passwd-entry=ENTRY

Customize the entry that is written to the /etc/passwd file within the container when --passwd is used.

The variables $USERNAME, $UID, $GID, $NAME, $HOME are automatically replaced with their value at runtime.

  --personality=persona

Personality sets the execution domain via Linux personality(2).

  --pid=mode

Set the PID namespace mode for the container. The default is to create a private PID namespace for the container.

    •   container:id: join another container's PID namespace;

    •   host: use the host's PID namespace for the container. Note the host mode gives the container full access to local PID and is therefore considered insecure;

    •   ns:path: join the specified PID namespace;

    •   private: create a new namespace for the container (default).

  --pidfile=path

When the pidfile location is specified, the container process' PID will be written to the pidfile. (This option is not available with the remote Podman client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines) If the pidfile option is not specified, the container process' PID will be written to /run/containers/storage/${storage-driver}-containers/$CID/userdata/pidfile.

After the container is started, the location for the pidfile can be discovered with the following podman inspect command:

    $ podman inspect --format '{{ .PidFile }}' $CID
    /run/containers/storage/${storage-driver}-containers/$CID/userdata/pidfile

  --pids-limit=limit

Tune the container's pids limit. Set to -1 to have unlimited pids for the container. The default is 4096 on systems that support "pids" cgroup controller.

  --platform=OS/ARCH

Specify the platform for selecting the image. (Conflicts with --arch and --os) The --platform option can be used to override the current architecture and operating system. Unless overridden, subsequent lookups of the same image in the local storage will match this platform, regardless of the host.

  --pod=name

Run container in an existing pod. If you want Podman to make the pod for you, prefix the pod name with new:. To make a pod with more granular options, use the podman pod create command before creating a container. If a container is run with a pod, and the pod has an infra-container, the infra-container will be started before the container is.

  --pod-id-file=file

Run container in an existing pod and read the pod's ID from the specified file. If a container is run within a pod, and the pod has an infra-container, the infra-container will be started before the container is.

  --privileged

Give extended privileges to this container. The default is false.

By default, Podman containers are unprivileged (=false) and cannot, for example, modify parts of the operating system. This is because by default a container is only allowed limited access to devices. A "privileged" container is given the same access to devices as the user launching the container.

A privileged container turns off the security features that isolate the container from the host. Dropped Capabilities, limited devices, read-only mount points, Apparmor/SELinux separation, and Seccomp filters are all disabled.

Rootless containers cannot have more privileges than the account that launched them.

  --publish, -p=[[ip:][hostPort]:]containerPort[/protocol]

Publish a container's port, or range of ports, to the host.

Both hostPort and containerPort can be specified as a range of ports. When specifying ranges for both, the number of container ports in the range must match the number of host ports in the range.

If host IP is set to 0.0.0.0 or not set at all, the port will be bound on all IPs on the host.

By default, Podman will publish TCP ports. To publish a UDP port instead, give udp as protocol. To publish both TCP and UDP ports, set --publish twice, with tcp, and udp as protocols respectively. Rootful containers can also publish ports using the sctp protocol.

Host port does not have to be specified (e.g. podman run -p 127.0.0.1::80). If it is not, the container port will be randomly assigned a port on the host.

Use podman port to see the actual mapping: podman port $CONTAINER $CONTAINERPORT.

Note: If a container will be run within a pod, it is not necessary to publish the port for the containers in the pod. The port must only be published by the pod itself. Pod network stacks act like the network stack on the host - you have a variety of containers in the pod, and programs in the container, all sharing a single interface and IP address, and associated ports. If one container binds to a port, no other container can use that port within the pod while it is in use. Containers in the pod can also communicate over localhost by having one container bind to localhost in the pod, and another connect to that port.

  --publish-all, -P

Publish all exposed ports to random ports on the host interfaces. The default is false.

When set to true, publish all exposed ports to the host interfaces. If the operator uses -P (or -p) then Podman will make the exposed port accessible on the host and the ports will be available to any client that can reach the host.

When using this option, Podman will bind any exposed port to a random port on the host within an ephemeral port range defined by /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range. To find the mapping between the host ports and the exposed ports, use podman port.

  --pull=policy

Pull image policy. The default is missing.

    •   always: Always pull the image and throw an error if the pull fails.

    •   missing: Pull the image only if it could not be found in the local containers storage. Throw an error if no image could be found and the pull fails.

    •   never: Never pull the image but use the one from the local containers storage. Throw an error if no image could be found.

    •   newer: Pull if the image on the registry is newer than the one in the local containers storage. An image is considered to be newer when the digests are different. Comparing the time stamps is prone to errors. Pull errors are suppressed if a local image was found.

  --quiet, -q

Suppress output information when pulling images

  --read-only

Mount the container's root filesystem as read-only.

By default a container will have its root filesystem writable allowing processes to write files anywhere. By specifying the --read-only flag, the container will have its root filesystem mounted as read-only prohibiting any writes.

  --read-only-tmpfs

If container is running in --read-only mode, then mount a read-write tmpfs on /run, /tmp, and /var/tmp. The default is true.

  --replace

If another container with the same name already exists, replace and remove it. The default is false.

  --requires=container

Specify one or more requirements. A requirement is a dependency container that will be started before this container. Containers can be specified by name or ID, with multiple containers being separated by commas.

  --restart=policy

Restart policy to follow when containers exit. Restart policy will not take effect if a container is stopped via the podman kill or podman stop commands.

Valid policy values are:

    •   no : Do not restart containers on exit

    •   on-failure[:max_retries] : Restart containers when they exit with a non-zero exit code, retrying indefinitely or until the optional max_retries count is hit

    •   always : Restart containers when they exit, regardless of status, retrying indefinitely

    •   unless-stopped : Identical to always

Please note that restart will not restart containers after a system reboot. If this functionality is required in your environment, you can invoke Podman from a systemd.unit(5) file, or create an init script for whichever init system is in use. To generate systemd unit files, please see podman generate systemd.

  --rm

Automatically remove the container when it exits. The default is false.

  --rootfs

If specified, the first argument refers to an exploded container on the file system.

This is useful to run a container without requiring any image management, the rootfs of the container is assumed to be managed externally.

Overlay Rootfs Mounts

The :O flag tells Podman to mount the directory from the rootfs path as storage using the overlay file system. The container processes can modify content within the mount point which is stored in the container storage in a separate directory. In overlay terms, the source directory will be the lower, and the container storage directory will be the upper. Modifications to the mount point are destroyed when the container finishes executing, similar to a tmpfs mount point being unmounted.

Note: On SELinux systems, the rootfs needs the correct label, which is by default unconfined_u:object_r:container_file_t:s0.

  --sdnotify=container | conmon | ignore

Determines how to use the NOTIFY_SOCKET, as passed with systemd and Type=notify.

Default is container, which means allow the OCI runtime to proxy the socket into the container to receive ready notification. Podman will set the MAINPID to conmon's pid. The conmon option sets MAINPID to conmon's pid, and sends READY when the container has started. The socket is never passed to the runtime or the container. The ignore option removes NOTIFY_SOCKET from the environment for itself and child processes, for the case where some other process above Podman uses NOTIFY_SOCKET and Podman should not use it.

  --seccomp-policy=policy

Specify the policy to select the seccomp profile. If set to image, Podman will look for a "io.containers.seccomp.profile" label in the container-image config and use its value as a seccomp profile. Otherwise, Podman will follow the default policy by applying the default profile unless specified otherwise via --security-opt seccomp as described below.

Note that this feature is experimental and may change in the future.

  --secret=secret[,opt=opt ...]

Give the container access to a secret. Can be specified multiple times.

A secret is a blob of sensitive data which a container needs at runtime but should not be stored in the image or in source control, such as usernames and passwords, TLS certificates and keys, SSH keys or other important generic strings or binary content (up to 500 kb in size).

When secrets are specified as type mount, the secrets are copied and mounted into the container when a container is created. When secrets are specified as type env, the secret will be set as an environment variable within the container. Secrets are written in the container at the time of container creation, and modifying the secret using podman secret commands after the container is created will not affect the secret inside the container.

Secrets and its storage are managed using the podman secret command.

Secret Options

    •   type=mount|env : How the secret will be exposed to the container. Default mount.

    •   target=target : Target of secret. Defaults to secret name.

    •   uid=0 : UID of secret. Defaults to 0. Mount secret type only.

    •   gid=0 : GID of secret. Defaults to 0. Mount secret type only.

    •   mode=0 : Mode of secret. Defaults to 0444. Mount secret type only.

  --security-opt=option

Security Options

    •   apparmor=unconfined : Turn off apparmor confinement for the container

    •   apparmor=your-profile : Set the apparmor confinement profile for the container

    •   label=user:USER : Set the label user for the container processes

    •   label=role:ROLE : Set the label role for the container processes

    •   label=type:TYPE : Set the label process type for the container processes

    •   label=level:LEVEL : Set the label level for the container processes

    •   label=filetype:TYPE : Set the label file type for the container files

    •   label=disable : Turn off label separation for the container

Note: Labeling can be disabled for all containers by setting label=false in the containers.conf (/etc/containers/containers.conf or $HOME/.config/containers/containers.conf) file.

    •   mask=/path/1:/path/2 : The paths to mask separated by a colon. A masked path cannot be accessed inside the container.

    •   no-new-privileges : Disable container processes from gaining additional privileges

    •   seccomp=unconfined : Turn off seccomp confinement for the container.

    •   seccomp=profile.json : JSON file to be used as a seccomp filter. Note that the io.podman.annotations.seccomp annotation is set with the specified value as shown in podman inspect.

    •   proc-opts=OPTIONS : Comma-separated list of options to use for the /proc mount. More details for the possible mount options are specified in the proc(5) man page.

    •   unmask=ALL or /path/1:/path/2, or shell expanded paths (/proc/*): Paths to unmask separated by a colon. If set to ALL, it will unmask all the paths that are masked or made read-only by default. The default masked paths are /proc/acpi, /proc/kcore, /proc/keys, /proc/latency_stats, /proc/sched_debug, /proc/scsi, /proc/timer_list, /proc/timer_stats, /sys/firmware, and /sys/fs/selinux. The default paths that are read-only are /proc/asound, /proc/bus, /proc/fs, /proc/irq, /proc/sys, /proc/sysrq-trigger, /sys/fs/cgroup.

Note: Labeling can be disabled for all containers by setting label=false in the containers.conf (/etc/containers/containers.conf or $HOME/.config/containers/containers.conf) file.

  --shm-size=number[unit]

Size of /dev/shm. A unit can be b (bytes), k (kibibytes), m (mebibytes), or g (gibibytes). If the unit is omitted, the system uses bytes. If the size is omitted, the default is 64m. When size is 0, there is no limit on the amount of memory used for IPC by the container. This option conflicts with --ipc=host.

  --stop-signal=signal

Signal to stop a container. Default is SIGTERM.

  --stop-timeout=seconds

Timeout to stop a container. Default is 10. Remote connections use local containers.conf for defaults

  --subgidname=name

Run the container in a new user namespace using the map with name in the /etc/subgid file. If running rootless, the user needs to have the right to use the mapping. See subgid(5). This flag conflicts with --userns and --gidmap.

  --subuidname=name

Run the container in a new user namespace using the map with name in the /etc/subuid file. If running rootless, the user needs to have the right to use the mapping. See subuid(5). This flag conflicts with --userns and --uidmap.

  --sysctl=name=value

Configure namespaced kernel parameters at runtime.

For the IPC namespace, the following sysctls are allowed:

    •   kernel.msgmax

    •   kernel.msgmnb

    •   kernel.msgmni

    •   kernel.sem

    •   kernel.shmall

    •   kernel.shmmax

    •   kernel.shmmni

    •   kernel.shm_rmid_forced

    •   Sysctls beginning with fs.mqueue.*

Note: if you use the --ipc=host option, the above sysctls are not allowed.

For the network namespace, only sysctls beginning with net.* are allowed.

Note: if you use the --network=host option, the above sysctls are not allowed.

  --systemd=true | false | always

Run container in systemd mode. The default is true.

The value always enforces the systemd mode is enforced without looking at the executable name. Otherwise, if set to true and the command you are running inside the container is systemd, /usr/sbin/init, /sbin/init or /usr/local/sbin/init.

Running the container in systemd mode causes the following changes:

    •   Podman mounts tmpfs file systems on the following directories

        •   /run

        •   /run/lock

        •   /tmp

        •   /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd

        •   /var/lib/journal

    •   Podman sets the default stop signal to SIGRTMIN+3.

    •   Podman sets container_uuid environment variable in the container to the first 32 characters of the container id.

This allows systemd to run in a confined container without any modifications.

Note that on SELinux systems, systemd attempts to write to the cgroup file system. Containers writing to the cgroup file system are denied by default. The container_manage_cgroup boolean must be enabled for this to be allowed on an SELinux separated system.

    setsebool -P container_manage_cgroup true

  --timeout=seconds

Maximum time a container is allowed to run before conmon sends it the kill signal. By default containers will run until they exit or are stopped by podman stop.

  --tls-verify

Require HTTPS and verify certificates when contacting registries (default: true). If explicitly set to true, TLS verification will be used. If set to false, TLS verification will not be used. If not specified, TLS verification will be used unless the target registry is listed as an insecure registry in containers-registries.conf(5)

  --tmpfs=fs

Create a tmpfs mount.

Mount a temporary filesystem (tmpfs) mount into a container, for example:

    $ podman create -d --tmpfs /tmp:rw,size=787448k,mode=1777 my_image

This command mounts a tmpfs at /tmp within the container. The supported mount options are the same as the Linux default mount flags. If you do not specify any options, the system uses the following options: rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev.

  --tty, -t

Allocate a pseudo-TTY. The default is false.

When set to true, Podman will allocate a pseudo-tty and attach to the standard input of the container. This can be used, for example, to run a throwaway interactive shell.

NOTE: The --tty flag prevents redirection of standard output. It combines STDOUT and STDERR, it can insert control characters, and it can hang pipes. This option should only be used when run interactively in a terminal. When feeding input to Podman, use -i only, not -it.

  --tz=timezone

Set timezone in container. This flag takes area-based timezones, GMT time, as well as local, which sets the timezone in the container to match the host machine. See /usr/share/zoneinfo/ for valid timezones. Remote connections use local containers.conf for defaults

  --uidmap=container_uid:from_uid:amount

Run the container in a new user namespace using the supplied UID mapping. This option conflicts with the --userns and --subuidname options. This option provides a way to map host UIDs to container UIDs. It can be passed several times to map different ranges.

The _fromuid value is based upon the user running the command, either rootful or rootless users. * rootful user: container_uid:host_uid:amount * rootless user: container_uid:intermediate_uid:amount

When podman create is called by a privileged user, the option --uidmap works as a direct mapping between host UIDs and container UIDs.

host UID -> container UID

The amount specifies the number of consecutive UIDs that will be mapped. If for example amount is 4 the mapping would look like:

| host UID | container UID | | - | - | | _fromuid | _containeruid | | _fromuid + 1 | _containeruid + 1 | | _fromuid + 2 | _containeruid + 2 | | _fromuid + 3 | _containeruid + 3 |

When podman create is called by an unprivileged user (i.e. running rootless), the value _fromuid is interpreted as an "intermediate UID". In the rootless case, host UIDs are not mapped directly to container UIDs. Instead the mapping happens over two mapping steps:

host UID -> intermediate UID -> container UID

The --uidmap option only influences the second mapping step.

The first mapping step is derived by Podman from the contents of the file /etc/subuid and the UID of the user calling Podman.

First mapping step:

| host UID | intermediate UID | | - | - | | UID for the user starting Podman | 0 | | 1st subordinate UID for the user starting Podman | 1 | | 2nd subordinate UID for the user starting Podman | 2 | | 3rd subordinate UID for the user starting Podman | 3 | | nth subordinate UID for the user starting Podman | n |

To be able to use intermediate UIDs greater than zero, the user needs to have subordinate UIDs configured in /etc/subuid. See subuid(5).

The second mapping step is configured with --uidmap.

If for example amount is 5 the second mapping step would look like:

| intermediate UID | container UID | | - | - | | _fromuid | _containeruid | | _fromuid + 1 | _containeruid + 1 | | _fromuid + 2 | _containeruid + 2 | | _fromuid + 3 | _containeruid + 3 | | _fromuid + 4 | _containeruid + 4 |

When running as rootless, Podman will use all the ranges configured in the /etc/subuid file.

The current user ID is mapped to UID=0 in the rootless user namespace. Every additional range is added sequentially afterward:

| host |rootless user namespace | length | | - | - | - | | $UID | 0 | 1 | | 1 | $FIRST_RANGE_ID | $FIRST_RANGE_LENGTH | | 1+$FIRST_RANGE_LENGTH | $SECOND_RANGE_ID | $SECOND_RANGE_LENGTH|

Even if a user does not have any subordinate UIDs in /etc/subuid, --uidmap could still be used to map the normal UID of the user to a container UID by running podman create --uidmap $container_uid:0:1 --user $container_uid ....

Note: the --uidmap flag cannot be called in conjunction with the --pod flag as a uidmap cannot be set on the container level when in a pod.

  --ulimit=option

Ulimit options. You can use host to copy the current configuration from the host.

  --umask=umask

Set the umask inside the container. Defaults to 0022. Remote connections use local containers.conf for defaults

  --unsetenv=env

Unset default environment variables for the container. Default environment variables include variables provided natively by Podman, environment variables configured by the image, and environment variables from containers.conf.

  --unsetenv-all

Unset all default environment variables for the container. Default environment variables include variables provided natively by Podman, environment variables configured by the image, and environment variables from containers.conf.

  --user, -u=user[:group]

Sets the username or UID used and, optionally, the groupname or GID for the specified command. Both user and group may be symbolic or numeric.

Without this argument, the command will run as the user specified in the container image. Unless overridden by a USER command in the Containerfile or by a value passed to this option, this user generally defaults to root.

When a user namespace is not in use, the UID and GID used within the container and on the host will match. When user namespaces are in use, however, the UID and GID in the container may correspond to another UID and GID on the host. In rootless containers, for example, a user namespace is always used, and root in the container will by default correspond to the UID and GID of the user invoking Podman.

  --userns=mode

Set the user namespace mode for the container. It defaults to the PODMAN_USERNS environment variable. An empty value ("") means user namespaces are disabled unless an explicit mapping is set with the --uidmap and --gidmap options.

This option is incompatible with --gidmap, --uidmap, --subuidname and --subgidname.

Rootless user --userns=Key mappings:
Key | Host User | Container User
"" | $UID | 0 (Default User account mapped to root user in container.)
keep-id | $UID | $UID (Map user account to same UID within container.)
auto | $UID | nil (Host User UID is not mapped into container.)
nomap | $UID | nil (Host User UID is not mapped into container.)

Valid mode values are:

auto[:OPTIONS,...]: automatically create a unique user namespace.

The --userns=auto flag, requires that the user name containers and a range of subordinate user ids that the Podman container is allowed to use be specified in the /etc/subuid and /etc/subgid files.

Example: containers:2147483647:2147483648.

Podman allocates unique ranges of UIDs and GIDs from the containers subordinate user ids. The size of the ranges is based on the number of UIDs required in the image. The number of UIDs and GIDs can be overridden with the size option.

The rootless option --userns=keep-id uses all the subuids and subgids of the user. Using --userns=auto when starting new containers will not work as long as any containers exist that were started with --userns=keep-id.

Valid auto options:

    •   gidmapping=_CONTAINER_GID:HOSTGID:SIZE: to force a GID mapping to be present in the user namespace.

    •   size=SIZE: to specify an explicit size for the automatic user namespace. e.g. --userns=auto:size=8192. If size is not specified, auto will estimate a size for the user namespace.

    •   uidmapping=_CONTAINER_UID:HOSTUID:SIZE: to force a UID mapping to be present in the user namespace.

container:id: join the user namespace of the specified container.

host: run in the user namespace of the caller. The processes running in the container will have the same privileges on the host as any other process launched by the calling user (default).

keep-id: creates a user namespace where the current rootless user's UID:GID are mapped to the same values in the container. This option is not allowed for containers created by the root user.

Valid keep-id options:

    •   uid=UID: override the UID inside the container that will be used to map the current rootless user to.

    •   gid=GID: override the GID inside the container that will be used to map the current rootless user to.

nomap: creates a user namespace where the current rootless user's UID:GID are not mapped into the container. This option is not allowed for containers created by the root user.

ns:namespace: run the container in the given existing user namespace.

  --uts=mode

Set the UTS namespace mode for the container. The following values are supported:

    •   host: use the host's UTS namespace inside the container.

    •   private: create a new namespace for the container (default).

    •   ns:[path]: run the container in the given existing UTS namespace.

    •   container:[container]: join the UTS namespace of the specified container.

  --variant=VARIANT

Use VARIANT instead of the default architecture variant of the container image. Some images can use multiple variants of the arm architectures, such as arm/v5 and arm/v7.

  --volume, -v=[[SOURCE-VOLUME|HOST-DIR:]CONTAINER-DIR[:OPTIONS]]

Create a bind mount. If -v /HOST-DIR:/CONTAINER-DIR is specified, Podman bind mounts /HOST-DIR from the host into /CONTAINER-DIR in the Podman container. Similarly, -v SOURCE-VOLUME:/CONTAINER-DIR will mount the named volume from the host into the container. If no such named volume exists, Podman will create one. If no source is given, the volume will be created as an anonymously named volume with a randomly generated name, and will be removed when the container is removed via the --rm flag or the podman rm --volumes command.

(Note when using the remote client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines, the volumes will be mounted from the remote server, not necessarily the client machine.)

The OPTIONS is a comma-separated list and can be: [1] ⟨#Footnote1⟩

    •   rw|ro

    •   z|Z

    •   [O]

    •   [U]

    •   [no]copy

    •   [no]dev

    •   [no]exec

    •   [no]suid

    •   [r]bind

    •   [r]shared|[r]slave|[r]private[r]unbindable

The CONTAINER-DIR must be an absolute path such as /src/docs. The volume will be mounted into the container at this directory.

If a volume source is specified, it must be a path on the host or the name of a named volume. Host paths are allowed to be absolute or relative; relative paths are resolved relative to the directory Podman is run in. If the source does not exist, Podman will return an error. Users must pre-create the source files or directories.

Any source that does not begin with a . or / will be treated as the name of a named volume. If a volume with that name does not exist, it will be created. Volumes created with names are not anonymous, and they are not removed by the --rm option and the podman rm --volumes command.

Specify multiple -v options to mount one or more volumes into a container.

Write Protected Volume Mounts

Add :ro or :rw option to mount a volume in read-only or read-write mode, respectively. By default, the volumes are mounted read-write. See examples.

Chowning Volume Mounts

By default, Podman does not change the owner and group of source volume directories mounted into containers. If a container is created in a new user namespace, the UID and GID in the container may correspond to another UID and GID on the host.

The :U suffix tells Podman to use the correct host UID and GID based on the UID and GID within the container, to change recursively the owner and group of the source volume.

Warning use with caution since this will modify the host filesystem.

Labeling Volume Mounts

Labeling systems like SELinux require that proper labels are placed on volume content mounted into a container. Without a label, the security system might prevent the processes running inside the container from using the content. By default, Podman does not change the labels set by the OS.

To change a label in the container context, add either of two suffixes :z or :Z to the volume mount. These suffixes tell Podman to relabel file objects on the shared volumes. The z option tells Podman that two containers share the volume content. As a result, Podman labels the content with a shared content label. Shared volume labels allow all containers to read/write content. The Z option tells Podman to label the content with a private unshared label. Only the current container can use a private volume.

Note: Do not relabel system files and directories. Relabeling system content might cause other confined services on your machine to fail. For these types of containers we recommend disabling SELinux separation. The option --security-opt label=disable disables SELinux separation for the container. For example if a user wanted to volume mount their entire home directory into a container, they need to disable SELinux separation.

       $ podman create --security-opt label=disable -v $HOME:/home/user fedora touch /home/user/file

Overlay Volume Mounts

The :O flag tells Podman to mount the directory from the host as a temporary storage using the overlay file system. The container processes can modify content within the mountpoint which is stored in the container storage in a separate directory. In overlay terms, the source directory will be the lower, and the container storage directory will be the upper. Modifications to the mount point are destroyed when the container finishes executing, similar to a tmpfs mount point being unmounted.

For advanced users, the overlay option also supports custom non-volatile upperdir and workdir for the overlay mount. Custom upperdir and workdir can be fully managed by the users themselves, and Podman will not remove it on lifecycle completion. Example :O,upperdir=/some/upper,workdir=/some/work

Subsequent executions of the container will see the original source directory content, any changes from previous container executions no longer exist.

One use case of the overlay mount is sharing the package cache from the host into the container to allow speeding up builds.

Note:

     - The `O` flag conflicts with other options listed above.

Content mounted into the container is labeled with the private label.
       On SELinux systems, labels in the source directory must be readable by the container label. Usually containers can read/execute container_share_t and can read/write container_file_t. If unable to change the labels on a source volume, SELinux container separation must be disabled for the container to work.
     - The source directory mounted into the container with an overlay mount should not be modified, it can cause unexpected failures. It is recommended to not modify the directory until the container finishes running.

Mounts propagation

By default bind mounted volumes are private. That means any mounts done inside the container will not be visible on host and vice versa. One can change this behavior by specifying a volume mount propagation property. Making a volume shared mounts done under that volume inside the container will be visible on host and vice versa. Making a volume slave enables only one way mount propagation and that is mounts done on host under that volume will be visible inside container but not the other way around. [1] ⟨#Footnote1⟩

To control mount propagation property of a volume one can use the [r]shared, [r]slave, [r]private or the [r]unbindable propagation flag. Propagation property can be specified only for bind mounted volumes and not for internal volumes or named volumes. For mount propagation to work the source mount point (the mount point where source dir is mounted on) has to have the right propagation properties. For shared volumes, the source mount point has to be shared. And for slave volumes, the source mount point has to be either shared or slave. [1] ⟨#Footnote1⟩

To recursively mount a volume and all of its submounts into a container, use the rbind option. By default the bind option is used, and submounts of the source directory will not be mounted into the container.

Mounting the volume with the nosuid options means that SUID applications on the volume will not be able to change their privilege. By default volumes are mounted with nosuid.

Mounting the volume with the noexec option means that no executables on the volume will be able to be executed within the container.

Mounting the volume with the nodev option means that no devices on the volume will be able to be used by processes within the container. By default volumes are mounted with nodev.

If the HOST-DIR is a mount point, then dev, suid, and exec options are ignored by the kernel.

Use df HOST-DIR to figure out the source mount, then use findmnt -o TARGET,PROPAGATION source-mount-dir to figure out propagation properties of source mount. If findmnt(1) utility is not available, then one can look at the mount entry for the source mount point in /proc/self/mountinfo. Look at the "optional fields" and see if any propagation properties are specified. In there, shared:N means the mount is shared, master:N means mount is slave, and if nothing is there, the mount is private. [1] ⟨#Footnote1⟩

To change propagation properties of a mount point, use mount(8) command. For example, if one wants to bind mount source directory /foo, one can do mount --bind /foo /foo and mount --make-private --make-shared /foo. This will convert /foo into a shared mount point. Alternatively, one can directly change propagation properties of source mount. Say / is source mount for /foo, then use mount --make-shared / to convert / into a shared mount.

Note: if the user only has access rights via a group, accessing the volume from inside a rootless container will fail.

Use the --group-add keep-groups option to pass the user's supplementary group access into the container.

  --volumes-from=CONTAINER[:OPTIONS]

Mount volumes from the specified container(s). Used to share volumes between containers. The options is a comma-separated list with the following available elements:

    •   rw|ro

    •   z

Mounts already mounted volumes from a source container onto another container. CONTAINER may be a name or ID. To share a volume, use the --volumes-from option when running the target container. Volumes can be shared even if the source container is not running.

By default, Podman mounts the volumes in the same mode (read-write or read-only) as it is mounted in the source container. This can be changed by adding a ro or rw option.

Labeling systems like SELinux require that proper labels are placed on volume content mounted into a container. Without a label, the security system might prevent the processes running inside the container from using the content. By default, Podman does not change the labels set by the OS.

To change a label in the container context, add z to the volume mount. This suffix tells Podman to relabel file objects on the shared volumes. The z option tells Podman that two entities share the volume content. As a result, Podman labels the content with a shared content label. Shared volume labels allow all containers to read/write content.

If the location of the volume from the source container overlaps with data residing on a target container, then the volume hides that data on the target.

  --workdir, -w=dir

Working directory inside the container.

The default working directory for running binaries within a container is the root directory (/). The image developer can set a different default with the WORKDIR instruction. The operator can override the working directory by using the -w option.

EXAMPLES

  Create a container using a local image

    $ podman create alpine ls

  Create a container using a local image and annotate it

    $ podman create --annotation HELLO=WORLD alpine ls

  Create a container using a local image, allocating a pseudo-TTY, keeping stdin open and name it myctr

      podman create -t -i --name myctr alpine ls

  Set UID/GID mapping in a new user namespace

Running a container in a new user namespace requires a mapping of the uids and gids from the host.

    $ podman create --uidmap 0:30000:7000 --gidmap 0:30000:7000 fedora echo hello

  Setting automatic user namespace separated containers

    # podman create --userns=auto:size=65536 ubi8-init

  Configure timezone in a container

    $ podman create --tz=local alpine date
    $ podman create --tz=Asia/Shanghai alpine date
    $ podman create --tz=US/Eastern alpine date

  Adding dependency containers

Podman will make sure the first container, container1, is running before the second container (container2) is started.

    $ podman create --name container1 -t -i fedora bash
    $ podman create --name container2 --requires container1 -t -i fedora bash
    $ podman start --attach container2

Multiple containers can be required.

    $ podman create --name container1 -t -i fedora bash
    $ podman create --name container2 -t -i fedora bash
    $ podman create --name container3 --requires container1,container2 -t -i fedora bash
    $ podman start --attach container3

  Configure keep supplemental groups for access to volume

    $ podman create -v /var/lib/design:/var/lib/design --group-add keep-groups ubi8

  Configure execution domain for containers using personality flag

    $ podman create --name container1 --personality=LINUX32 fedora bash

  Create a container with external rootfs mounted as an overlay

    $ podman create --name container1 --rootfs /path/to/rootfs:O bash

  Create a container connected to two networks (called net1 and net2) with a static ip

    $ podman create --network net1:ip=10.89.1.5 --network net2:ip=10.89.10.10 alpine ip addr

  Rootless Containers

Podman runs as a non-root user on most systems. This feature requires that a new enough version of shadow-utils be installed. The shadow-utils package must include the newuidmap and newgidmap executables.

In order for users to run rootless, there must be an entry for their username in /etc/subuid and /etc/subgid which lists the UIDs for their user namespace.

Rootless Podman works better if the fuse-overlayfs and slirp4netns packages are installed. The fuse-overlayfs package provides a userspace overlay storage driver, otherwise users need to use the vfs storage driver, which is diskspace expensive and does not perform well. slirp4netns is required for VPN, without it containers need to be run with the --network=host flag.

ENVIRONMENT

Environment variables within containers can be set using multiple different options: This section describes the precedence.

Precedence order (later entries override earlier entries):

    •   --env-host : Host environment of the process executing Podman is added.

    •   --http-proxy: By default, several environment variables will be passed in from the host, such as http_proxy and no_proxy. See --http-proxy for details.

    •   Container image : Any environment variables specified in the container image.

    •   --env-file : Any environment variables specified via env-files. If multiple files specified, then they override each other in order of entry.

    •   --env : Any environment variables specified will override previous settings.

Create containers and set the environment ending with a *. The trailing * glob functionality is only active when no value is specified:

    $ export ENV1=a
    $ podman create --name ctr1 --env 'ENV*' alpine env
    $ podman start --attach ctr1 | grep ENV
    ENV1=a
    $ podman create --name ctr2 --env 'ENV*=b' alpine env
    $ podman start --attach ctr2 | grep ENV
    ENV*=b

CONMON

When Podman starts a container it actually executes the conmon program, which then executes the OCI Runtime. Conmon is the container monitor. It is a small program whose job is to watch the primary process of the container, and if the container dies, save the exit code. It also holds open the tty of the container, so that it can be attached to later. This is what allows Podman to run in detached mode (backgrounded), so Podman can exit but conmon continues to run. Each container has their own instance of conmon. Conmon waits for the container to exit, gathers and saves the exit code, and then launches a Podman process to complete the container cleanup, by shutting down the network and storage. For more information on conmon, please reference the conmon(8) man page.

FILES

/etc/subuid /etc/subgid

NOTE: Use the environment variable TMPDIR to change the temporary storage location of downloaded container images. Podman defaults to use /var/tmp.

SEE ALSO

podman(1), podman-save(1), podman-ps(1), podman-attach(1), podman-pod-create(1), podman-port(1), podman-start(1), podman-kill(1), podman-stop(1), podman-generate-systemd(1), podman-rm(1), subgid(5), subuid(5), containers.conf(5), systemd.unit(5), setsebool(8), slirp4netns(1), fuse-overlayfs(1), proc(5), conmon(8), personality(2)

HISTORY

October 2017, converted from Docker documentation to Podman by Dan Walsh for Podman <dwalsh@redhat.com>

November 2014, updated by Sven Dowideit <SvenDowideit@home.org.au>

September 2014, updated by Sven Dowideit <SvenDowideit@home.org.au>

August 2014, updated by Sven Dowideit <SvenDowideit@home.org.au>

FOOTNOTES

1: The Podman project is committed to inclusivity, a core value of open source. The master and slave mount propagation terminology used here is problematic and divisive, and should be changed. However, these terms are currently used within the Linux kernel and must be used as-is at this time. When the kernel maintainers rectify this usage, Podman will follow suit immediately.