Ubuntu Manpage: podman-create - Create a new container

Provided by: podman_4.3.1+ds1-5ubuntu1_amd64

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).

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 │
└────┴───────────┴─────┴──────────────┘

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).

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.

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).

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).

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).

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).

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:

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:

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.

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.

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.

                                                                                 podman-create(1)

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

IMAGE

OPTIONS

EXAMPLES

ENVIRONMENT

CONMON

FILES

SEE ALSO

HISTORY

FOOTNOTES