Before I dabbled a bit with Docker. I wanted to dabble a bit with Podman because it seemed quite interesting. I reinstalled Pi OS Lite on my Pi 3B+ and installed Podman. Then I figured out what to run and started digging through the documentation. Apparently Docker containers work quite similar and even Docker compose can be used. Then I came across the auto update function and stumbled upon quadlets to use auto update and got confused. Then I tried reading up on Podman rootless and rootful and networking stuff and really got lost.
I want to run the following services:
- Heimdall
- Adguard Home
- Jellyfin
- Vaultwarden
- Nextcloud
I am not sure a Pi is even powerful enough to run these things but I am even more unsure about how to set things up. Do I use quadlets? Do I run containers? How do I do the networking so I can reach the containers (maybe even outside my home)?
Can someone point me in the right direction? I can’t seem to find the needed information.
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For me the value of podman is how easily it works without root. Just install and run, no need for sudo or adding myself to docker group.
I use it for testing and dev work, not for running any services.
I use podman mainly because it’s very easy to manage using systemd services. Unfortunately, the command for generating these service files,
podman-generate, is deprecated and won’t receive new features.Auto updating is done just using a simple tag and enabling a systemd timer to do it regularly for you.
It’s easiest to start with the rootful mode, you won’t have additional settings to set and no issues with permissions, UIDs and networking.
For networking, I always create a network per service I want to run. For example Nextcloud and its database would go in one network and you’d only forward the port for the webinterface for outside access.
In addition to networks I also use pods, this basically groups the containers together to start/stop them as one. If you use this, you have to set your port forwarding here.
Podman-generate was replaced by Quadlet .container files, which works better.
And a Pod also has it’s own virtual network, why manually create one?
I switched from Docker to Podman, because Podman is more secure (if rootless) but it was just hard to autostart containars. You have to start one by one because they don’t have a central service like docker. And watchtower and nextcloud AIO don’t work on Podman. So I switched back to docker.
Its actually much easier to autostart containers with Podman, as it has full Systemd integration, so you can handle them like any other service. All you need to do is write a simple .container file for the Podman built-in Quadlet service, which closely follows the normal Systemd .service file syntax.
Yes but you have to do that for each service if I understand correctly.
Podman is quickly becoming shit as Red Hat continues to remove features and recommend you use Kubernetes. I ended up removing it from my servers and switching to Debian from Fedora because I don’t like Red Hat mucking about with our open source community software.
I still run Docker.
For those who are out of the loop, why is podman shit? It is rootless and crazy fast.
It isn’t. It’s architecture changes pretty significantly with each version, which is annoying when you need it to be stable. It’s also dominated by Redhat, which is a legit concern since they’ll likely start paywalling capabilities eventually.
I have never seen any of those things. Podman is fast and rootless with almost no overhead. It has good compatibility with docker as well.
Also it would make zero sense to paywall podman as Kubernetes exists. Anyway RHEL is payed anyway.
Just cause you’ve never seen them doesn’t make it not true.
Try using quadlet and a .container file on current Debian stable. It doesn’t work. Architecture changed, quadlet is now recommended.
Try setting device permissions in the container after updating to Debian testing. Also doesn’t work the same way. Architecture changed.
Redhat hasn’t ruined it yet, but Ansible should provide a pretty good idea of the potential trajectory.
As someone who’s been wanting to test (and maybe move to Podman) in the future but hasn’t really spent any time on it, what features have Red hat removed from Podman?
My major beef is we used to be able to run a Podman generate command to make a user systemd file and auto start and stop containers with that. Even entire clusters of pods with one easy command and then just use the system level start and stop. They removed it in favor of “quadlet”which works fine for single containers, but for a compose, they literally just use Kubernetes syntax and the official documentation says just use Kubernetes. Well, what the fuck is Podman for then?
The biggest problem everyone ever has with Podman is it’s frustratingly obedient to SELinux. Docker just kind of makes its own permissions and opens its own ports and steamrolls past whatever security you have. Podman will refuse to read or write a directory for stupid reasons until you’ve gone round and round with SELinux, and then just when you have it working, when the container updates it locks the directory all over again(in my case, updating a Minecraft server to latest version would crash the server and lock the data directory). Red Hat continues to insist SELinux is cool and this is working as intended. Again, Docker just doesn’t give a shit and barges into the directory without a problem.
There are .pod files for Quadlet now, which do what you want. No Kubernetes involved.
My impression is really the opposite. Podman is constantly being improved and nice features get added all the time.
If you don’t like SELinux, just disable it. Nothing to do with Podman.
Every complaint here is PEBKAC.
It’s a legit argument that Docker has a stable architecture while podman is still evolving, but that’s how software do. I haven’t seen anything that isn’t backward compatible, or very strongly deprecated with notice.
Complaining about selinux in 2024? Setenforce 0, audit2allow, and get on with it.
Docker doing that while selinux is enforcing is an actual bad thing that you don’t want.
Now look here chap, Quadlet admittedly works fine. I personally just k3s anyway but .pod files work too.
Isn’t being obedient to SELinux a good thing? You could set it to permissive if you want, but MAC systems are essential for security and I personally wouldn’t go without them
My humble POV it’s to stick with whatever do the work.
