Provided by: podman_5.7.0+ds2-3_amd64 
NAME
podman-systemd.unit - systemd units using Podman Quadlet
SYNOPSIS
name.container, name.volume, name.network, name.kube name.image, name.build name.pod, name.artifact
Podman rootful unit search path
Quadlet files for the root user can be placed in the following directories ordered in precedence. Meaning
duplicate named quadlets found under /run take precedence over ones in /etc, as well as those in /usr:
Temporary quadlets, usually used for testing:
• /run/containers/systemd/
System administrator's defined quadlets:
• /etc/containers/systemd/
Distribution defined quadlets:
• /usr/share/containers/systemd/
Podman rootless unit search path
Quadlet files for non-root users can be placed in the following directories:
• $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/containers/systemd/
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/containers/systemd/ or ~/.config/containers/systemd/
• /etc/containers/systemd/users/$(UID)
• /etc/containers/systemd/users/
Using symbolic links
Quadlet supports using symbolic links for the base of the search paths and inside them.
DESCRIPTION
Podman supports building and starting containers (and creating volumes) via systemd by using a systemd
generator. These files are read during boot (and when systemctl daemon-reload is run) and generate
corresponding regular systemd service unit files. Both system and user systemd units are supported. All
options and tables available in standard systemd unit files are supported. For example, options defined
in the [Service] table and [Install] tables pass directly to systemd and are handled by it. See
systemd.unit(5) man page for more information.
The Podman generator reads the search paths above and reads files with the extensions .container .volume,
.network, .build, .pod, .kube, and .artifact, and for each file generates a similarly named .service
file. Be aware that existing vendor services (i.e., in /usr/) are replaced if they have the same name.
The generated unit files can be started and managed with systemctl like any other systemd service.
systemctl {--user} list-unit-files lists existing unit files on the system.
The Podman files use the same format as regular systemd unit files. Each file type has a custom section
(for example, [Container]) that is handled by Podman, and all other sections are passed on untouched,
allowing the use of any normal systemd configuration options like dependencies or cgroup limits.
The source files also support drop-ins in the same way systemd does. For a given source file
(foo.container), the corresponding .d directory (foo.container.d) will be scanned for files with a .conf
extension, which are then merged into the base file in alphabetical order. Top-level type drop-ins
(container.d) will also be included. If the unit contains dashes ("-") in the name (foo-bar-
baz.container), then the drop-in directories generated by truncating the name after the dash are searched
as well (foo-.container.d and foo-bar-.container.d). Drop-in files with the same name further down the
hierarchy override those further up (foo-bar-baz.container.d/10-override.conf overrides foo-
bar-.container.d/10-override.conf, which overrides foo-.service.d/10-override.conf, which overrides
container.d/10-override.conf). The format of these drop-in files is the same as the base file. This is
useful to alter or add configuration settings for a unit, without having to modify unit files.
For rootless containers, when administrators place Quadlet files in the /etc/containers/systemd/users
directory, all users' sessions execute the Quadlet when the login session begins. If the administrator
places a Quadlet file in the /etc/containers/systemd/users/${UID}/ directory, then only the user with the
matching UID executes the Quadlet when the login session gets started. For unit files placed in
subdirectories within /etc/containers/systemd/user/${UID}/ and the other user unit search paths, Quadlet
will recursively search and run the unit files present in these subdirectories.
Note that Quadlet units do not support running as a non-root user by defining the User, Group, or
DynamicUser systemd options. If you want to run a rootless Quadlet, you will need to create the user and
add the unit file to one of the above rootless unit search paths.
Note: When a Quadlet is starting, Podman often pulls or builds one more container images which may take a
considerable amount of time. Systemd defaults service start time to 90 seconds, or fails the service.
Pre-pulling the image or extending the systemd timeout time for the service using the TimeoutStartSec
Service option can fix the problem. A word of caution: TimeoutStartSec is not available for Type=oneshot
units. Refer to systemd.service(5) for more information on how to handle long startup times for units
which do not need to stay active once their main process has finished.
Adding the following snippet to a Quadlet file extends the systemd timeout to 15 minutes.
[Service]
TimeoutStartSec=900
Quadlet requires the use of cgroup v2, use podman info --format {{.Host.CgroupsVersion}} to check on the
system.
Service Type
By default, the Type field of the Service section of the Quadlet file does not need to be set. Quadlet
will set it to notify for .container and .kube files, forking for .pod files, and oneshot for .volume,
.network, .build, .image, and .artifact files.
However, Type may be explicitly set to oneshot for .container and .kube files when no containers are
expected to run once podman exits.
When setting Type=oneshot, it is recommended to also set RemainAfterExit=yes to prevent the service state
from becoming inactive (dead). However, when activating a service via a timer unit, having
RemainAfterExit=yes leaves the job in a "started" state which prevents subsequent activations by the
timer. For more information, see the systemd.service(5) man page.
Examples for such cases: - .container file with an image that exits after their entrypoint has finished
• .kube file pointing to a Kubernetes Yaml file that does not define any containers. E.g. PVCs only
Enabling unit files
The services created by Podman are considered transient by systemd, which means they don't have the same
persistence rules as regular units. In particular, it is not possible to systemctl enable them in order
for them to become automatically enabled on the next boot.
To compensate for this, the generator manually applies the [Install] section of the container definition
unit files during generation, in the same way systemctl enable does when run later.
For example, to start a container on boot, add something like this to the file:
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
Currently, only the Alias, WantedBy, RequiredBy, and UpheldBy keys are supported.
The Install section can be part of the main file, or it can be in a separate drop-in file as described
above. The latter allows you to install an non-enabled unit and then later enabling it by installing the
drop-in.
Template files
Systemd supports a concept of template files. They are units with names of the form
"basename@instancename.service" when they are running, but that can be instantiated multiple times from a
single "basename@.service" file. The individual instances can also be different by using drop-in files
with the full instance name.
Quadlets support these in two ways. First of all, a quadlet unit with a template form will generate a
systemd service with a template form, and the template systemd service can be used as a regular template.
For example, "foo@.container" will generate "foo@.service" and you can then "systemctl start
foo@bar.service".
Secondly, if you make a symlink like "foo@instance.container", that will generate an instantiated
template file. When generating this file quadlet will read drop-in files both from the instanced
directory (foo@instance.container.d) and the template directory (foo@.container.d). This allows
customization of individual instances.
Instanced template files (like foo@bar.container) can be enabled just like non-templated ones. However,
templated ones (foo@.container) are different, because they need to be instantiated. If the [Install]
section contains a DefaultInstance= key, then that instance will be enabled, but if not, nothing will
happen and the options will only be used as the default for units that are instantiated using symlinks.
An example template file sleep@.container might look like this:
[Unit]
Description=A templated sleepy container
[Container]
Image=quay.io/fedora/fedora
Exec=sleep %i
[Service]
# Restart service when sleep finishes
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
DefaultInstance=100
If this is installed, then on boot there will be a sleep@100.service running that sleeps for 100 seconds.
You can then do something like systemctl start sleep@50.service to start another instance that sleeps 50
seconds, or alternatively another service can start it via a dependency like Wants=sleep@50.service.
In addition, if you do ln -s sleep@.container sleep@10.container you will also have a 10 second sleep
running at boot. And, if you want that particular instance to be running with another image, you can
create a drop-in file like sleep@10.container.d/10-image.conf:
[Container]
Image=quay.io/centos/centos
Relative paths
In order to support Systemd specifiers, Quadlet does not resolve relative paths that start with %. To
resolve such a path, prepend it with ./.
For example, instead of EnvironmentFile=%n/env use EnvironmentFile=./%n/env
Debugging unit files
After placing the unit file in one of the unit search paths (mentioned above), you can start it with
systemctl start {--user}. If it fails with "Failed to start example.service: Unit example.service not
found.", then it is possible that you used incorrect syntax or you used an option from a newer version of
Podman Quadlet and the generator failed to create a service file.
View the generated files and/or error messages with:
/usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/podman-system-generator {--user} --dryrun
Alternatively, show only the errors with:
systemd-analyze {--user} --generators=true verify example.service
That command also performs additional checks on the generated service unit. For details, see systemd-
analyze(1) man page.
Debugging a limited set of unit files
If you would like to debug a limited set of unit files, you can copy them to a separate directory and set
the QUADLET_UNIT_DIRS environment variable to this directory when running the command below:
QUADLET_UNIT_DIRS=<Directory> /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/podman-system-generator {--user} --dryrun
This will instruct Quadlet to look for units in this directory instead of the common ones and by that
limit the output to only the units you are debugging.
Implicit network dependencies
Quadlet will add dependencies on network-online.target (as root) or podman-user-wait-network-
online.service (as user) by adding After= and Wants= properties to the unit. This is to ensure that the
network is reachable if an image needs to be pulled and by the time the container is started.
The special case podman-user-wait-network-online.service unit is needed as user because user units are
unable to wait for system (root) units so network-online.target doesn't do anything there and is instead
ignored. As this caused a significant amount of issues we decided to work around this with our own
special purpose unit that simply checks if the network-online.target unit is active with systemctl is-
active network-online.target.
This behavior can be disabled by adding DefaultDependencies=false in the Quadlet section. Note, the
systemd [Unit] section has an option with the same name but a different meaning.
Dependency between Quadlet units
Quadlet will automatically translate dependencies, specified in the keys Wants, Requires, Requisite,
BindsTo, PartOf, Upholds, Conflicts, Before and After of the [Unit] section, between different Quadlet
units.
For example the fedora.container unit below specifies a dependency on the basic.container unit.
[Unit]
After=basic.container
Requires=basic.container
[Container]
Image=registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora:41
Setting resource names
Quadlet units allow setting the names of the created resources (e.g. VolumeName for .volume units or
PodName for .pod units).
Note that using systemd specifiers that reference the generated service unit (e.g. $N) breaks Quadlet's
ability to link between resources as they are translated differently in each service
Container units [Container]
Container units are named with a .container extension and contain a [Container] section describing the
container that is run as a service. The resulting service file contains a line like ExecStart=podman run
… image-name, and most of the keys in this section control the command-line options passed to Podman.
However, some options also affect the details of how systemd is set up to run and interact with the
container.
By default, the Podman container has the same name as the unit, but with a systemd- prefix, i.e. a
$name.container file creates a $name.service unit and a systemd-$name Podman container. The ContainerName
option allows for overriding this default name with a user-provided one.
There is only one required key, Image, which defines the container image the service runs.
Valid options for [Container] are listed below:
┌────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Container] options │ podman run equivalent │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ AddCapability=CAP │ --cap-add CAP │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ AddDevice=/dev/foo │ --device /dev/foo │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ AddHost=example.com:192.168.10.11 │ --add-host example.com:192.168.10.11 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Annotation="XYZ" │ --annotation "XYZ" │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ AutoUpdate=registry │ --label │
│ │ "io.containers.autoupdate=registry" │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ CgroupsMode=no-conmon │ --cgroups=no-conmon │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ContainerName=name │ --name name │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ContainersConfModule=/etc/nvd.conf │ --module=/etc/nvd.conf │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DNS=192.168.55.1 │ --dns=192.168.55.1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DNSOption=ndots:1 │ --dns-option=ndots:1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DNSSearch=example.com │ --dns-search example.com │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DropCapability=CAP │ --cap-drop=CAP │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Entrypoint=/foo.sh │ --entrypoint=/foo.sh │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Environment=foo=bar │ --env foo=bar │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ EnvironmentFile=/tmp/env │ --env-file /tmp/env │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ EnvironmentHost=true │ --env-host │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Exec=/usr/bin/command │ Command after image specification - │
│ │ /usr/bin/command │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ExposeHostPort=50-59 │ --expose 50-59 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GIDMap=0:10000:10 │ --gidmap=0:10000:10 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GlobalArgs=--log-level=debug │ --log-level=debug │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Group=1234 │ --user UID:1234 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GroupAdd=keep-groups │ --group-add=keep-groups │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthCmd=/usr/bin/command │ --health-cmd=/usr/bin/command │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthInterval=2m │ --health-interval=2m │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthLogDestination=/foo/log │ --health-log-destination=/foo/log │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthMaxLogCount=5 │ --health-max-log-count=5 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthMaxLogSize=500 │ --health-max-log-size=500 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthOnFailure=kill │ --health-on-failure=kill │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthRetries=5 │ --health-retries=5 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthStartPeriod=1m │ --health-start-period=period=1m │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthStartupCmd=command │ --health-startup-cmd=command │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthStartupInterval=1m │ --health-startup-interval=1m │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthStartupRetries=8 │ --health-startup-retries=8 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthStartupSuccess=2 │ --health-startup-success=2 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthStartupTimeout=1m33s │ --health-startup-timeout=1m33s │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HealthTimeout=20s │ --health-timeout=20s │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HostName=example.com │ --hostname example.com │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HttpProxy=true │ --http-proxy=true │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Image=ubi8 │ Image specification - ubi8 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IP=192.5.0.1 │ --ip 192.5.0.1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IP6=2001:db8::1 │ --ip6 2001:db8::1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Label="XYZ" │ --label "XYZ" │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ LogDriver=journald │ --log-driver journald │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ LogOpt=path=/var/log/mykube.json │ --log-opt path=/var/log/mykube.json │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Mask=/proc/sys/foo:/proc/sys/bar │ --security-opt │
│ │ mask=/proc/sys/foo:/proc/sys/bar │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Memory=20g │ --memory 20g │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Mount=type=... │ --mount type=... │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Network=host │ --network host │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ NetworkAlias=name │ --network-alias name │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ NoNewPrivileges=true │ --security-opt no-new-privileges │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Notify=true │ --sdnotify container │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PidsLimit=10000 │ --pids-limit 10000 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Pod=pod-name │ --pod=pod-name │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PodmanArgs=--publish 8080:80 │ --publish 8080:80 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PublishPort=8080:80 │ --publish 8080:80 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Pull=never │ --pull never │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ReadOnly=true │ --read-only │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ReadOnlyTmpfs=true │ --read-only-tmpfs │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ReloadCmd=/usr/bin/command │ Add ExecReload and run exec with the │
│ │ value │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ReloadSignal=SIGHUP │ Add ExecReload and run kill with the │
│ │ signal │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Retry=5 │ --retry=5 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ RetryDelay=5s │ --retry-delay=5s │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Rootfs=/var/lib/rootfs │ --rootfs /var/lib/rootfs │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ RunInit=true │ --init │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SeccompProfile=/tmp/s.json │ --security-opt seccomp=/tmp/s.json │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Secret=secret │ --secret=secret[,opt=opt ...] │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SecurityLabelDisable=true │ --security-opt label=disable │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SecurityLabelFileType=usr_t │ --security-opt label=filetype:usr_t │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SecurityLabelLevel=s0:c1,c2 │ --security-opt label=level:s0:c1,c2 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SecurityLabelNested=true │ --security-opt label=nested │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SecurityLabelType=spc_t │ --security-opt label=type:spc_t │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ShmSize=100m │ --shm-size=100m │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ StartWithPod=true │ If Pod= is defined, container is │
│ │ started by pod │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ StopSignal=SIGINT │ --stop-signal=SIGINT │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ StopTimeout=20 │ --stop-timeout=20 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SubGIDMap=gtest │ --subgidname=gtest │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SubUIDMap=utest │ --subuidname=utest │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Sysctl=name=value │ --sysctl=name=value │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Timezone=local │ --tz local │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Tmpfs=/work │ --tmpfs /work │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ UIDMap=0:10000:10 │ --uidmap=0:10000:10 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Ulimit=nofile=1000:10000 │ --ulimit nofile=1000:10000 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Unmask=ALL │ --security-opt unmask=ALL │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ User=bin │ --user bin │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ UserNS=keep-id:uid=200,gid=210 │ --userns keep-id:uid=200,gid=210 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Volume=/source:/dest │ --volume /source:/dest │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ WorkingDir=$HOME │ --workdir $HOME │
└────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
Description of [Container] section are:
AddCapability=
Add these capabilities, in addition to the default Podman capability set, to the container.
This is a space separated list of capabilities. This key can be listed multiple times.
For example:
AddCapability=CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE CAP_IPC_OWNER
AddDevice=
Adds a device node from the host into the container. The format of this is HOST-DEVICE[:CONTAINER-
DEVICE][:PERMISSIONS], where HOST-DEVICE is the path of the device node on the host, CONTAINER-DEVICE is
the path of the device node in the container, and PERMISSIONS is a list of permissions combining 'r' for
read, 'w' for write, and 'm' for mknod(2). The - prefix tells Quadlet to add the device only if it exists
on the host.
This key can be listed multiple times.
AddHost=
Add host-to-IP mapping to /etc/hosts. The format is hostname:ip.
Equivalent to the Podman --add-host option. This key can be listed multiple times.
Annotation=
Set one or more OCI annotations on the container. The format is a list of key=value items, similar to
Environment.
This key can be listed multiple times.
AutoUpdate=
Indicates whether the container will be auto-updated (podman-auto-update(1)). The following values are
supported:
• registry: Requires a fully-qualified image reference (e.g., quay.io/podman/stable:latest) to be used to
create the container. This enforcement is necessary to know which image to actually check and pull. If
an image ID was used, Podman does not know which image to check/pull anymore.
• local: Tells Podman to compare the image a container is using to the image with its raw name in local
storage. If an image is updated locally, Podman simply restarts the systemd unit executing the
container.
CgroupsMode=
The cgroups mode of the Podman container. Equivalent to the Podman --cgroups option.
By default, the cgroups mode of the container created by Quadlet is split, which differs from the default
(enabled) used by the Podman CLI.
If the container joins a pod (i.e. Pod= is specified), you may want to change this to no-conmon or
enabled so that pod level cgroup resource limits can take effect.
ContainerName=
The (optional) name of the Podman container. If this is not specified, the default value of systemd-%N is
used, which is the same as the service name but with a systemd- prefix to avoid conflicts with user-
managed containers.
ContainersConfModule=
Load the specified containers.conf(5) module. Equivalent to the Podman --module option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
DNS=
Set network-scoped DNS resolver/nameserver for containers in this network.
This key can be listed multiple times.
DNSOption=
Set custom DNS options.
This key can be listed multiple times.
DNSSearch=
Set custom DNS search domains. Use DNSSearch=. to remove the search domain.
This key can be listed multiple times.
DropCapability=
Drop these capabilities from the default podman capability set, or all to drop all capabilities.
This is a space separated list of capabilities. This key can be listed multiple times.
For example:
DropCapability=CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE CAP_IPC_OWNER
Entrypoint=
Override the default ENTRYPOINT from the image. Equivalent to the Podman --entrypoint option. Specify
multi option commands in the form of a JSON string.
Environment=
Set an environment variable in the container. This uses the same format as services in systemd and can be
listed multiple times.
EnvironmentFile=
Use a line-delimited file to set environment variables in the container. The path may be absolute or
relative to the location of the unit file. This key may be used multiple times, and the order persists
when passed to podman run.
EnvironmentHost=
Use the host environment inside of the container.
Exec=
Additional arguments for the container; this has exactly the same effect as passing more arguments after
a podman run <image> <arguments> invocation.
The format is the same as for systemd command lines, However, unlike the usage scenario for similarly-
named systemd ExecStart= verb which operates on the ambient root filesystem, it is very common for
container images to have their own ENTRYPOINT or CMD metadata which this interacts with.
The default expectation for many images is that the image will include an ENTRYPOINT with a default
binary, and this field will add arguments to that entrypoint.
Another way to describe this is that it works the same way as the args field in a Kubernetes pod.
ExposeHostPort=
Exposes a port, or a range of ports (e.g. 50-59), from the host to the container. Equivalent to the
Podman --expose option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
GIDMap=
Run the container in a new user namespace using the supplied GID mapping. Equivalent to the Podman
--gidmap option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
GlobalArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly between podman and run in the generated file. It
can be used to access Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is
unaware of what unexpected interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use
this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Group=
The (numeric) GID to run as inside the container. This does not need to match the GID on the host, which
can be modified with UserNS, but if that is not specified, this GID is also used on the host.
Note: when both User= and Group= are specified, they are combined into a single --user USER:GROUP
argument passed to Podman. Using Group= without User= will result in an error.
GroupAdd=
Assign additional groups to the primary user running within the container process. Also supports the
keep-groups special flag. Equivalent to the Podman --group-add option.
HealthCmd=
Set or alter a healthcheck command for a container. A value of none disables existing healthchecks.
Equivalent to the Podman --health-cmd option.
HealthInterval=
Set an interval for the healthchecks. An interval of disable results in no automatic timer setup.
Equivalent to the Podman --health-interval option.
HealthLogDestination=
Set the destination of the HealthCheck log. Directory path, local or events_logger (local use container
state file) (Default: local) Equivalent to the Podman --health-log-destination option.
• local: (default) HealthCheck logs are stored in overlay containers. (For example:
$runroot/healthcheck.log)
• directory: creates a log file named <container-ID>-healthcheck.log with HealthCheck logs in the
specified directory.
• events_logger: The log will be written with logging mechanism set by events_logger. It also saves the
log to a default directory, for performance on a system with a large number of logs.
HealthMaxLogCount=
Set maximum number of attempts in the HealthCheck log file. ('0' value means an infinite number of
attempts in the log file) (Default: 5 attempts) Equivalent to the Podman --Health-max-log-count option.
HealthMaxLogSize=
Set maximum length in characters of stored HealthCheck log. ("0" value means an infinite log length)
(Default: 500 characters) Equivalent to the Podman --Health-max-log-size option.
HealthOnFailure=
Action to take once the container transitions to an unhealthy state. The "kill" action in combination
integrates best with systemd. Once the container turns unhealthy, it gets killed, and systemd restarts
the service. Equivalent to the Podman --health-on-failure option.
HealthRetries=
The number of retries allowed before a healthcheck is considered to be unhealthy. Equivalent to the
Podman --health-retries option.
HealthStartPeriod=
The initialization time needed for a container to bootstrap. Equivalent to the Podman --health-start-
period option.
HealthStartupCmd=
Set a startup healthcheck command for a container. Equivalent to the Podman --health-startup-cmd option.
HealthStartupInterval=
Set an interval for the startup healthcheck. An interval of disable results in no automatic timer setup.
Equivalent to the Podman --health-startup-interval option.
HealthStartupRetries=
The number of attempts allowed before the startup healthcheck restarts the container. Equivalent to the
Podman --health-startup-retries option.
HealthStartupSuccess=
The number of successful runs required before the startup healthcheck succeeds and the regular
healthcheck begins. Equivalent to the Podman --health-startup-success option.
HealthStartupTimeout=
The maximum time a startup healthcheck command has to complete before it is marked as failed. Equivalent
to the Podman --health-startup-timeout option.
HealthTimeout=
The maximum time allowed to complete the healthcheck before an interval is considered failed. Equivalent
to the Podman --health-timeout option.
HostName=
Sets the host name that is available inside the container. Equivalent to the Podman --hostname option.
HttpProxy=
Controls whether proxy environment variables (http_proxy, https_proxy, ftp_proxy, no_proxy) are passed
from the Podman process into the container during image pulls and builds.
Set to true to enable proxy inheritance (default Podman behavior) or false to disable it. This option is
particularly useful on systems that require proxy configuration for internet access but don't want proxy
settings passed to the container runtime.
Equivalent to the Podman --http-proxy option.
Image=
The image to run in the container. It is recommended to use a fully qualified image name rather than a
short name, both for performance and robustness reasons.
The format of the name is the same as when passed to podman pull. So, it supports using :tag or digests
to guarantee the specific image version.
Special Cases:
• If the name of the image ends with .image, Quadlet will use the image pulled by the corresponding
.image file, and the generated systemd service contains a dependency on the $name-image.service (or the
service name set in the .image file). Note that the corresponding .image file must exist.
• If the name of the image ends with .build, Quadlet will use the image built by the corresponding .build
file, and the generated systemd service contains a dependency on the $name-build.service. Note: the
corresponding .build file must exist.
IP=
Specify a static IPv4 address for the container, for example 10.88.64.128. Equivalent to the Podman --ip
option.
IP6=
Specify a static IPv6 address for the container, for example fd46:db93:aa76:ac37::10. Equivalent to the
Podman --ip6 option.
Label=
Set one or more OCI labels on the container. The format is a list of key=value items, similar to
Environment.
This key can be listed multiple times.
LogDriver=
Set the log-driver used by Podman when running the container. Equivalent to the Podman --log-driver
option.
LogOpt=
Set the log-opt (logging options) used by Podman when running the container. Equivalent to the Podman
--log-opt option. This key can be listed multiple times.
Mask=
Specify the paths to mask separated by a colon. Mask=/path/1:/path/2. A masked path cannot be accessed
inside the container.
Memory=
Specify the amount of memory for the container.
Mount=
Attach a filesystem mount to the container. This is equivalent to the Podman --mount option, and
generally has the form type=TYPE,TYPE-SPECIFIC-OPTION[,...].
Special cases:
• For type=volume, if source ends with .volume, the Podman named volume generated by the corresponding
.volume file is used.
• For type=image, if source ends with .image, the image generated by the corresponding .image file is
used.
In both cases, the generated systemd service will contain a dependency on the service generated for the
corresponding unit. Note: the corresponding .volume or .image file must exist.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Network=
Specify a custom network for the container. This has the same format as the --network option to podman
run. For example, use host to use the host network in the container, or none to not set up networking in
the container.
Special cases:
• If the name of the network ends with .network, a Podman network called systemd-$name is used, and the
generated systemd service contains a dependency on the $name-network.service. Such a network can be
automatically created by using a $name.network Quadlet file. Note: the corresponding .network file must
exist.
• If the name ends with .container, the container will reuse the network stack of another container
created by $name.container. The generated systemd service contains a dependency on $name.service.
Note: the corresponding .container file must exist.
This key can be listed multiple times.
NetworkAlias=
Add a network-scoped alias for the container. This has the same format as the --network-alias option to
podman run. Aliases can be used to group containers together in DNS resolution: for example, setting
NetworkAlias=web on multiple containers will make a DNS query for web resolve to all the containers with
that alias.
This key can be listed multiple times.
NoNewPrivileges= (defaults to false)
If enabled, this disables the container processes from gaining additional privileges via things like
setuid and file capabilities.
Notify= (defaults to false)
By default, Podman is run in such a way that the systemd startup notify command is handled by the
container runtime. In other words, the service is deemed started when the container runtime starts the
child in the container. However, if the container application supports sd_notify, then setting Notify to
true passes the notification details to the container allowing it to notify of startup on its own.
In addition, setting Notify to healthy will postpone startup notifications until such time as the
container is marked healthy, as determined by Podman healthchecks. Note that this requires setting up a
container healthcheck, see the HealthCmd option for more.
PidsLimit=
Tune the container's pids limit. This is equivalent to the Podman --pids-limit option.
Pod=
Specify a Quadlet .pod unit to link the container to. The value must take the form of <name>.pod and the
.pod unit must exist.
Quadlet will add all the necessary parameters to link between the container and the pod and between their
corresponding services.
PodmanArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly to the end of the podman run command in the
generated file (right before the image name in the command line). It can be used to access Podman
features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is unaware of what unexpected
interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
PublishPort=
Exposes a port, or a range of ports (e.g. 50-59), from the container to the host. Equivalent to the
Podman --publish option. The format is similar to the Podman options, which is of the form
ip:hostPort:containerPort, ip::containerPort, hostPort:containerPort or containerPort, where the number
of host and container ports must be the same (in the case of a range).
If the IP is set to 0.0.0.0 or not set at all, the port is bound on all IPv4 addresses on the host; use
[::] for IPv6.
Note that not listing a host port means that Podman automatically selects one, and it may be different
for each invocation of service. This makes that a less useful option. The allocated port can be found
with the podman port command.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Pull=
Set the image pull policy. This is equivalent to the Podman --pull option
ReadOnly= (defaults to false)
If enabled, makes the image read-only.
ReadOnlyTmpfs= (defaults to true)
If ReadOnly is set to true, mount a read-write tmpfs on /dev, /dev/shm, /run, /tmp, and /var/tmp.
ReloadCmd=
Add ExecReload line to the Service that runs podman exec with this command in this container.
In order to execute the reload run systemctl reload <Service>
Mutually exclusive with ReloadSignal
ReloadSignal=
Add ExecReload line to the Service that runs podman kill with this signal which sends the signal to the
main container process.
In order to execute the reload run systemctl reload <Service>
Mutually exclusive with ReloadCmd
Retry=
Number of times to retry the image pull when a HTTP error occurs. Equivalent to the Podman --retry
option.
RetryDelay=
Delay between retries. Equivalent to the Podman --retry-delay option.
Rootfs=
The rootfs to use for the container. Rootfs points to a directory on the system that contains the content
to be run within the container. This option conflicts with the Image option.
The format of the rootfs is the same as when passed to podman run --rootfs, so it supports overlay mounts
as well.
Note: On SELinux systems, the rootfs needs the correct label, which is by default
unconfined_u:object_r:container_file_t:s0.
RunInit= (defaults to false)
If enabled, the container has a minimal init process inside the container that forwards signals and reaps
processes.
SeccompProfile=
Set the seccomp profile to use in the container. If unset, the default podman profile is used. Set to
either the pathname of a JSON file, or unconfined to disable the seccomp filters.
Secret=
Use a Podman secret in the container either as a file or an environment variable. This is equivalent to
the Podman --secret option and generally has the form secret[,opt=opt ...]
SecurityLabelDisable=
Turn off label separation for the container.
SecurityLabelFileType=
Set the label file type for the container files.
SecurityLabelLevel=
Set the label process level for the container processes.
SecurityLabelNested=
Allow SecurityLabels to function within the container. This allows separation of containers created
within the container.
SecurityLabelType=
Set the label process type for the container processes.
ShmSize=
Size of /dev/shm.
This is equivalent to the Podman --shm-size option and generally has the form number[unit]
StartWithPod=
Start the container after the associated pod is created. Default to true.
If true, container will be started/stopped/restarted alongside the pod.
If false, the container will not be started when the pod starts. The container will be stopped with the
pod. Restarting the pod will also restart the container as long as the container was also running before.
Note, the container can still be started manually or through a target by configuring the [Install]
section. The pod will be started as needed in any case.
StopSignal=
Signal to stop a container. Default is SIGTERM.
This is equivalent to the Podman --stop-signal option
StopTimeout=
Seconds to wait before forcibly stopping the container.
Note, this value should be lower than the actual systemd unit timeout to make sure the podman rm command
is not killed by systemd.
This is equivalent to the Podman --stop-timeout option
SubGIDMap=
Run the container in a new user namespace using the map with name in the /etc/subgid file. Equivalent to
the Podman --subgidname option.
SubUIDMap=
Run the container in a new user namespace using the map with name in the /etc/subuid file. Equivalent to
the Podman --subuidname option.
Sysctl=
Configures namespaced kernel parameters for the container. The format is Sysctl=name=value.
This is a space separated list of kernel parameters. This key can be listed multiple times.
For example:
Sysctl=net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1 net.ipv6.conf.all.use_tempaddr=1
Timezone= (if unset uses system-configured default)
The timezone to run the container in.
Tmpfs=
Mount a tmpfs in the container. This is equivalent to the Podman --tmpfs option, and generally has the
form CONTAINER-DIR[:OPTIONS].
This key can be listed multiple times.
UIDMap=
Run the container in a new user namespace using the supplied UID mapping. Equivalent to the Podman
--uidmap option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Ulimit=
Ulimit options. Sets the ulimits values inside of the container.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Unmask=
Specify the paths to unmask separated by a colon. unmask=ALL or /path/1:/path/2, or shell expanded paths
(/proc/*):
If set to ALL, Podman 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.
User=
The (numeric) UID to run as inside the container. This does not need to match the UID on the host, which
can be modified with UserNS, but if that is not specified, this UID is also used on the host.
Note: when both User= and Group= are specified, they are combined into a single --user USER:GROUP
argument passed to Podman.
UserNS=
Set the user namespace mode for the container. This is equivalent to the Podman --userns option and
generally has the form MODE[:OPTIONS,...].
Volume=
Mount a volume in the container. This is equivalent to the Podman --volume option, and generally has the
form [[SOURCE-VOLUME|HOST-DIR:]CONTAINER-DIR[:OPTIONS]].
If SOURCE-VOLUME starts with ., Quadlet resolves the path relative to the location of the unit file.
Special case:
• If SOURCE-VOLUME ends with .volume, a Podman named volume called systemd-$name is used as the source,
and the generated systemd service contains a dependency on the $name-volume.service. Note that the
corresponding .volume file must exist.
This key can be listed multiple times.
WorkingDir=
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. This option overrides the
working directory by using the -w option.
Pod units [Pod]
Pod units are named with a .pod extension and contain a [Pod] section describing the pod that is created
and run as a service. The resulting service file contains a line like ExecStartPre=podman pod create …,
and most of the keys in this section control the command-line options passed to Podman.
By default, the Podman pod has the same name as the unit, but with a systemd- prefix, i.e. a $name.pod
file creates a $name-pod.service unit and a systemd-$name Podman pod. The PodName option allows for
overriding this default name with a user-provided one.
Valid options for [Pod] are listed below:
┌────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Pod] options │ podman pod create equivalent │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ AddHost=example.com:192.168.10.11 │ --add-host example.com:192.168.10.11 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ContainersConfModule=/etc/nvd.conf │ --module=/etc/nvd.conf │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DNS=192.168.55.1 │ --dns=192.168.55.1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DNSOption=ndots:1 │ --dns-option=ndots:1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DNSSearch=example.com │ --dns-search example.com │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ExitPolicy=stop │ --exit-policy stop │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GIDMap=0:10000:10 │ --gidmap=0:10000:10 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GlobalArgs=--log-level=debug │ --log-level=debug │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ HostName=name │ --hostname=name │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IP=192.5.0.1 │ --ip 192.5.0.1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IP6=2001:db8::1 │ --ip6 2001:db8::1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Label="XYZ" │ --label "XYZ" │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Network=host │ --network host │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ NetworkAlias=name │ --network-alias name │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PodmanArgs=--cpus=2 │ --cpus=2 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PodName=name │ --name=name │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PublishPort=8080:80 │ --publish 8080:80 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ServiceName=name │ Name the systemd unit name.service │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ShmSize=100m │ --shm-size=100m │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ StopTimeout=20 │ --time=20 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SubGIDMap=gtest │ --subgidname=gtest │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SubUIDMap=utest │ --subuidname=utest │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ UIDMap=0:10000:10 │ --uidmap=0:10000:10 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ UserNS=keep-id:uid=200,gid=210 │ --userns keep-id:uid=200,gid=210 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Volume=/source:/dest │ --volume /source:/dest │
└────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┘
Supported keys in the [Pod] section are:
AddHost=
Add host-to-IP mapping to /etc/hosts. The format is hostname:ip.
Equivalent to the Podman --add-host option. This key can be listed multiple times.
ContainersConfModule=
Load the specified containers.conf(5) module. Equivalent to the Podman --module option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
DNS=
Set network-scoped DNS resolver/nameserver for containers in this pod.
This key can be listed multiple times.
DNSOption=
Set custom DNS options.
This key can be listed multiple times.
DNSSearch=
Set custom DNS search domains. Use DNSSearch=. to remove the search domain.
This key can be listed multiple times.
ExitPolicy=
Set the exit policy of the pod when the last container exits. Default for quadlets is stop.
To keep the pod active, set ExitPolicy=continue.
GIDMap=
Create the pod in a new user namespace using the supplied GID mapping. Equivalent to the Podman --gidmap
option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
GlobalArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly between podman and pod in the generated file. It
can be used to access Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is
unaware of what unexpected interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use
this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
HostName=
Set the pod’s hostname inside all containers.
The given hostname is also added to the /etc/hosts file using the container’s primary IP address (also
see the --add-host option).
Equivalent to the Podman --hostname option. This key can be listed multiple times.
IP=
Specify a static IPv4 address for the pod, for example 10.88.64.128. Equivalent to the Podman --ip
option.
IP6=
Specify a static IPv6 address for the pod, for example fd46:db93:aa76:ac37::10. Equivalent to the Podman
--ip6 option.
Label=
Set one or more OCI labels on the pod. The format is a list of key=value items, similar to Environment.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Network=
Specify a custom network for the pod. This has the same format as the --network option to podman pod
create. For example, use host to use the host network in the pod, or none to not set up networking in
the pod.
Special case:
• If the name of the network ends with .network, Quadlet will look for the corresponding .network Quadlet
unit. If found, Quadlet will use the name of the Network set in the Unit, otherwise, systemd-$name is
used.
The generated systemd service contains a dependency on the service unit generated for that .network unit.
Note: the corresponding .network file must exist.
This key can be listed multiple times.
NetworkAlias=
Add a network-scoped alias for the pod. This has the same format as the --network-alias option to podman
pod create. Aliases can be used to group containers together in DNS resolution: for example, setting
NetworkAlias=web on multiple containers will make a DNS query for web resolve to all the containers with
that alias.
This key can be listed multiple times.
PodmanArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly to the end of the podman pod create command in the
generated file. It can be used to access Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since
the generator is unaware of what unexpected interactions can be caused by these arguments, is not
recommended to use this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
PodName=
The (optional) name of the Podman pod. If this is not specified, the default value is the same name as
the unit, but with a systemd- prefix, i.e. a $name.pod file creates a systemd-$name Podman pod to avoid
conflicts with user-managed pods.
Please note that pods and containers cannot have the same name. So, if PodName is set, it must not
conflict with any container.
PublishPort=
Exposes a port, or a range of ports (e.g. 50-59), from the pod to the host. Equivalent to the Podman
--publish option. The format is similar to the Podman options, which is of the form
ip:hostPort:containerPort, ip::containerPort, hostPort:containerPort or containerPort, where the number
of host and container ports must be the same (in the case of a range).
If the IP is set to 0.0.0.0 or not set at all, the port is bound on all IPv4 addresses on the host; use
[::] for IPv6.
Note that not listing a host port means that Podman automatically selects one, and it may be different
for each invocation of service. This makes that a less useful option. The allocated port can be found
with the podman port command.
When using host networking via Network=host, the PublishPort= option cannot be used.
This key can be listed multiple times.
ServiceName=
By default, Quadlet will name the systemd service unit by appending -pod to the name of the Quadlet.
Setting this key overrides this behavior by instructing Quadlet to use the provided name.
Note, the name should not include the .service file extension
ShmSize=
Size of /dev/shm.
This is equivalent to the Podman --shm-size option and generally has the form number[unit]
StopTimeout=
Sets the time in seconds to wait for the pod to gracefully stop. This value is equivalent to the --time
argument in the podman pod stop command when the service is stopped. After this period expires, any
running containers in the pod are forcibly killed.
SubGIDMap=
Create the pod in a new user namespace using the map with name in the /etc/subgid file. Equivalent to
the Podman --subgidname option.
SubUIDMap=
Create the pod in a new user namespace using the map with name in the /etc/subuid file. Equivalent to
the Podman --subuidname option.
UIDMap=
Create the pod in a new user namespace using the supplied UID mapping. Equivalent to the Podman --uidmap
option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
UserNS=
Set the user namespace mode for the pod. This is equivalent to the Podman --userns option and generally
has the form MODE[:OPTIONS,...].
Volume=
Mount a volume in the pod. This is equivalent to the Podman --volume option, and generally has the form
[[SOURCE-VOLUME|HOST-DIR:]CONTAINER-DIR[:OPTIONS]].
If SOURCE-VOLUME starts with ., Quadlet resolves the path relative to the location of the unit file.
Special case:
• If SOURCE-VOLUME ends with .volume, Quadlet will look for the corresponding .volume Quadlet unit. If
found, Quadlet will use the name of the Volume set in the Unit, otherwise, systemd-$name is used. Note:
the corresponding .volume file must exist.
The generated systemd service contains a dependency on the service unit generated for that .volume unit,
or on $name-volume.service if the .volume unit is not found.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Kube units [Kube]
Kube units are named with a .kube extension and contain a [Kube] section describing how podman kube play
runs as a service. The resulting service file contains a line like ExecStart=podman kube play … file.yml,
and most of the keys in this section control the command-line options passed to Podman. However, some
options also affect the details of how systemd is set up to run and interact with the container.
There is only one required key, Yaml, which defines the path to the Kubernetes YAML file.
Valid options for [Kube] are listed below:
┌────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Kube] options │ podman kube play equivalent │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ AutoUpdate=registry │ --annotation "io.containers.autoupdate=registry" │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ConfigMap=/tmp/config.map │ --config-map /tmp/config.map │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ContainersConfModule=/etc/nvd.conf │ --module=/etc/nvd.conf │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ExitCodePropagation=how │ How to propagate container error status │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GlobalArgs=--log-level=debug │ --log-level=debug │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ KubeDownForce=true │ --force (for podman kube down) │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ LogDriver=journald │ --log-driver journald │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Network=host │ --network host │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PodmanArgs=--annotation=key=value │ --annotation=key=value │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PublishPort=8080:80 │ --publish 8080:80 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SetWorkingDirectory=yaml │ Set WorkingDirectory of unit file to location of the YAML file │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ UserNS=keep-id:uid=200,gid=210 │ --userns keep-id:uid=200,gid=210 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Yaml=/tmp/kube.yaml │ podman kube play /tmp/kube.yaml │
└────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Supported keys in the [Kube] section are:
AutoUpdate=
Indicates whether containers will be auto-updated (podman-auto-update(1)). AutoUpdate can be specified
multiple times. The following values are supported:
• registry: Requires a fully-qualified image reference (e.g., quay.io/podman/stable:latest) to be used to
create the container. This enforcement is necessary to know which images to actually check and pull. If
an image ID was used, Podman does not know which image to check/pull anymore.
• local: Tells Podman to compare the image a container is using to the image with its raw name in local
storage. If an image is updated locally, Podman simply restarts the systemd unit executing the
Kubernetes Quadlet.
• name/(local|registry): Tells Podman to perform the local or registry autoupdate on the specified
container name.
ConfigMap=
Pass the Kubernetes ConfigMap YAML path to podman kube play via the --configmap argument. Unlike the
configmap argument, the value may contain only one path but it may be absolute or relative to the
location of the unit file.
This key may be used multiple times
ContainersConfModule=
Load the specified containers.conf(5) module. Equivalent to the Podman --module option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
ExitCodePropagation=
Control how the main PID of the systemd service should exit. The following values are supported: - all:
exit non-zero if all containers have failed (i.e., exited non-zero) - any: exit non-zero if any container
has failed - none: exit zero and ignore failed containers
The current default value is none.
GlobalArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly between podman and kube in the generated file. It
can be used to access Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is
unaware of what unexpected interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use
this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
KubeDownForce=
Remove all resources, including volumes, when calling podman kube down. Equivalent to the Podman --force
option.
LogDriver=
Set the log-driver Podman uses when running the container. Equivalent to the Podman --log-driver option.
Network=
Specify a custom network for the container. This has the same format as the --network option to podman
kube play. For example, use host to use the host network in the container, or none to not set up
networking in the container.
Special case:
• If the name of the network ends with .network, a Podman network called systemd-$name is used, and the
generated systemd service contains a dependency on the $name-network.service. Such a network can be
automatically created by using a $name.network Quadlet file. Note: the corresponding .network file must
exist.
This key can be listed multiple times.
PodmanArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly to the end of the podman kube play command in the
generated file (right before the path to the yaml file in the command line). It can be used to access
Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is unaware of what unexpected
interactions can be caused by these arguments, is not recommended to use this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
PublishPort=
Exposes a port, or a range of ports (e.g. 50-59), from the container to the host. Equivalent to the
podman kube play's --publish option. The format is similar to the Podman options, which is of the form
ip:hostPort:containerPort, ip::containerPort, hostPort:containerPort or containerPort, where the number
of host and container ports must be the same (in the case of a range).
If the IP is set to 0.0.0.0 or not set at all, the port is bound on all IPv4 addresses on the host; use
[::] for IPv6.
The list of published ports specified in the unit file is merged with the list of ports specified in the
Kubernetes YAML file. If the same container port and protocol is specified in both, the entry from the
unit file takes precedence
This key can be listed multiple times.
SetWorkingDirectory=
Set the WorkingDirectory field of the Service group of the Systemd service unit file. Used to allow
podman kube play to correctly resolve relative paths. Supported values are yaml and unit to set the
working directory to that of the YAML or Quadlet Unit file respectively.
Alternatively, users can explicitly set the WorkingDirectory field of the Service group in the .kube
file. Please note that if the WorkingDirectory field of the Service group is set, Quadlet will not set
it even if SetWorkingDirectory is set
Special case: * If multiple Yaml path are provided only unit is supported.
UserNS=
Set the user namespace mode for the container. This is equivalent to the Podman --userns option and
generally has the form MODE[:OPTIONS,...].
Yaml=
The path, absolute or relative to the location of the unit file, to the Kubernetes YAML file to use.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Network units [Network]
Network files are named with a .network extension and contain a section [Network] describing the named
Podman network. The generated service is a one-time command that ensures that the network exists on the
host, creating it if needed.
By default, the Podman network has the same name as the unit, but with a systemd- prefix, i.e. for a
network file named $NAME.network, the generated Podman network is called systemd-$NAME, and the generated
service file is $NAME-network.service. The NetworkName option allows for overriding this default name
with a user-provided one.
Please note that stopping the corresponding service will not remove the podman network. In addition,
updating an existing network is not supported. In order to update the network parameters you will first
need to manually remove the podman network and then restart the service.
Using network units allows containers to depend on networks being automatically pre-created. This is
particularly interesting when using special options to control network creation, as Podman otherwise
creates networks with the default options.
Valid options for [Network] are listed below:
┌────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Network] options │ podman network create equivalent │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ContainersConfModule=/etc/nvd.conf │ --module=/etc/nvd.conf │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DisableDNS=true │ --disable-dns │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DNS=192.168.55.1 │ --dns=192.168.55.1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Driver=bridge │ --driver bridge │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Gateway=192.168.55.3 │ --gateway 192.168.55.3 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GlobalArgs=--log-level=debug │ --log-level=debug │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ InterfaceName=enp1 │ --interface-name enp1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Internal=true │ --internal │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IPAMDriver=dhcp │ --ipam-driver dhcp │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IPRange=192.168.55.128/25 │ --ip-range 192.168.55.128/25 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IPv6=true │ --ipv6 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Label="XYZ" │ --label "XYZ" │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ NetworkDeleteOnStop=true │ Add ExecStopPost to delete the │
│ │ network when the unit is stopped │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ NetworkName=foo │ podman network create foo │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Options=isolate=true │ --opt isolate=true │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PodmanArgs=--dns=192.168.55.1 │ --dns=192.168.55.1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Subnet=192.5.0.0/16 │ --subnet 192.5.0.0/16 │
└────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
Supported keys in [Network] section are:
ContainersConfModule=
Load the specified containers.conf(5) module. Equivalent to the Podman --module option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
DisableDNS= (defaults to false)
If enabled, disables the DNS plugin for this network.
This is equivalent to the Podman --disable-dns option
DNS=
Set network-scoped DNS resolver/nameserver for containers in this network.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Driver= (defaults to bridge)
Driver to manage the network. Currently bridge, macvlan and ipvlan are supported.
This is equivalent to the Podman --driver option
Gateway=
Define a gateway for the subnet. If you want to provide a gateway address, you must also provide a subnet
option.
This is equivalent to the Podman --gateway option
This key can be listed multiple times.
GlobalArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly between podman and network in the generated file.
It can be used to access Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is
unaware of what unexpected interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use
this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
InterfaceName=
This option maps the network_interface option in the network config, see podman network inspect.
Depending on the driver, this can have different effects; for bridge, it uses the bridge interface name.
For macvlan and ipvlan, it is the parent device on the host. It is the same as --opt parent=....
This is equivalent to the Podman --interface-name option.
Internal= (defaults to false)
Restrict external access of this network.
This is equivalent to the Podman --internal option
IPAMDriver=
Set the ipam driver (IP Address Management Driver) for the network. Currently host-local, dhcp and none
are supported.
This is equivalent to the Podman --ipam-driver option
IPRange=
Allocate container IP from a range. The range must be a either a complete subnet in CIDR notation or be
in the <startIP>-<endIP> syntax which allows for a more flexible range compared to the CIDR subnet. The
ip-range option must be used with a subnet option.
This is equivalent to the Podman --ip-range option
This key can be listed multiple times.
IPv6=
Enable IPv6 (Dual Stack) networking.
This is equivalent to the Podman --ipv6 option
Label=
Set one or more OCI labels on the network. The format is a list of key=value items, similar to
Environment.
This key can be listed multiple times.
NetworkDeleteOnStop= (defaults to false)
When set to true the network is deleted when the service is stopped
NetworkName=
The (optional) name of the Podman network. If this is not specified, the default value is the same name
as the unit, but with a systemd- prefix, i.e. a $name.network file creates a systemd-$name Podman network
to avoid conflicts with user-managed network.
Options=
Set driver specific options.
This is equivalent to the Podman --opt option
PodmanArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly to the end of the podman network create command in
the generated file (right before the name of the network in the command line). It can be used to access
Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is unaware of what unexpected
interactions can be caused by these arguments, is not recommended to use this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Subnet=
The subnet in CIDR notation.
This is equivalent to the Podman --subnet option
This key can be listed multiple times.
Volume units [Volume]
Volume files are named with a .volume extension and contain a section [Volume] describing the named
Podman volume. The generated service is a one-time command that ensures that the volume exists on the
host, creating it if needed.
By default, the Podman volume has the same name as the unit, but with a systemd- prefix, i.e. for a
volume file named $NAME.volume, the generated Podman volume is called systemd-$NAME, and the generated
service file is $NAME-volume.service. The VolumeName option allows for overriding this default name with
a user-provided one.
Using volume units allows containers to depend on volumes being automatically pre-created. This is
particularly interesting when using special options to control volume creation, as Podman otherwise
creates volumes with the default options.
Valid options for [Volume] are listed below:
┌────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Volume] options │ podman volume create equivalent │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ContainersConfModule=/etc/nvd.conf │ --module=/etc/nvd.conf │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Copy=true │ --opt copy │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Device=tmpfs │ --opt device=tmpfs │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Driver=image │ --driver=image │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GlobalArgs=--log-level=debug │ --log-level=debug │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Group=192 │ --opt group=192 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Image=quay.io/centos/centos:latest │ --opt │
│ │ image=quay.io/centos/centos:latest │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Label="foo=bar" │ --label "foo=bar" │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Options=XYZ │ --opt "o=XYZ" │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PodmanArgs=--driver=image │ --driver=image │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Type=type │ Filesystem type of Device │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ User=123 │ --opt uid=123 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ VolumeName=foo │ podman volume create foo │
└────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────┘
Supported keys in [Volume] section are:
ContainersConfModule=
Load the specified containers.conf(5) module. Equivalent to the Podman --module option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Copy= (default to true)
If enabled, the content of the image located at the mountpoint of the volume is copied into the volume on
the first run.
Device=
The path of a device which is mounted for the volume.
Driver=
Specify the volume driver name. When set to image, the Image key must also be set.
This is equivalent to the Podman --driver option.
GlobalArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly between podman and volume in the generated file. It
can be used to access Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is
unaware of what unexpected interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use
this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Group=
The host (numeric) GID, or group name to use as the group for the volume
Image=
Specifies the image the volume is based on when Driver is set to the image. It is recommended to use a
fully qualified image name rather than a short name, both for performance and robustness reasons.
The format of the name is the same as when passed to podman pull. So, it supports using :tag or digests
to guarantee the specific image version.
Special case:
• If the name of the image ends with .image, Quadlet will use the image pulled by the corresponding
.image file, and the generated systemd service contains a dependency on the $name-image.service (or the
service name set in the .image file). Note: the corresponding .image file must exist.
Label=
Set one or more OCI labels on the volume. The format is a list of key=value items, similar to
Environment.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Options=
The mount options to use for a filesystem as used by the mount(8) command -o option.
PodmanArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly to the end of the podman volume create command in
the generated file (right before the name of the volume in the command line). It can be used to access
Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is unaware of what unexpected
interactions can be caused by these arguments, is not recommended to use this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Type=
The filesystem type of Device as used by the mount(8) commands -t option.
User=
The host (numeric) UID, or user name to use as the owner for the volume
VolumeName=
The (optional) name of the Podman volume. If this is not specified, the default value is the same name
as the unit, but with a systemd- prefix, i.e. a $name.volume file creates a systemd-$name Podman volume
to avoid conflicts with user-managed volumes.
Build units [Build]
Build files are named with a .build extension and contain a section [Build] describing the image build
command. The generated service is a one-time command that ensures that the image is built on the host
from a supplied Containerfile and context directory. Subsequent (re-)starts of the generated built
service will usually finish quickly, as image layer caching will skip unchanged build steps.
A minimal .build unit needs at least the ImageTag= key, and either of File= or SetWorkingDirectory= keys.
Using build units allows containers and volumes to depend on images being built locally. This can be
interesting for creating container images not available on container registries, or for local testing and
development.
Valid options for [Build] are listed below:
┌────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Build] options │ podman build equivalent │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Annotation=annotation=value │ --annotation=annotation=value │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Arch=aarch64 │ --arch=aarch64 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ AuthFile=/etc/registry/auth.json │ --authfile=/etc/registry/auth.json │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ BuildArg=foo=bar │ --build-arg foo=bar │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ContainersConfModule=/etc/nvd.conf │ --module=/etc/nvd.conf │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DNS=192.168.55.1 │ --dns=192.168.55.1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DNSOption=ndots:1 │ --dns-option=ndots:1 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DNSSearch=example.com │ --dns-search example.com │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Environment=foo=bar │ --env foo=bar │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ File=/path/to/Containerfile │ --file=/path/to/Containerfile │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ForceRM=false │ --force-rm=false │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GlobalArgs=--log-level=debug │ --log-level=debug │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GroupAdd=keep-groups │ --group-add=keep-groups │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IgnoreFile=/path/to/.customignore │ --ignorefile=/path/to/.customignore │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ImageTag=localhost/imagename │ --tag=localhost/imagename │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Label=label │ --label=label │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Network=host │ --network=host │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PodmanArgs=--pull never │ --pull never │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Pull=never │ --pull never │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Retry=5 │ --retry=5 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ RetryDelay=10s │ --retry-delay=10s │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Secret=secret │ --secret=id=mysecret,src=path │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SetWorkingDirectory=unit │ Set WorkingDirectory of systemd unit file │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Target=my-app │ --target=my-app │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ TLSVerify=false │ --tls-verify=false │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Variant=arm/v7 │ --variant=arm/v7 │
├────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Volume=/source:/dest │ --volume /source:/dest │
└────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────┘
Annotation=
Add an image annotation (e.g. annotation=value) to the image metadata. Can be used multiple times.
This is equivalent to the --annotation option of podman build.
Arch=
Override the architecture, defaults to hosts', of the image to be built.
This is equivalent to the --arch option of podman build.
AuthFile=
Path of the authentication file.
This is equivalent to the --authfile option of podman build.
BuildArg=
Specifies a build argument and its value in the same way environment variables are (e.g., env=value), but
it is not added to the environment variable list in the resulting image's configuration. Can be listed
multiple times.
This is equivalent to the --build-arg option of podman build.
ContainersConfModule=
Load the specified containers.conf(5) module. Equivalent to the Podman --module option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
DNS=
Set network-scoped DNS resolver/nameserver for the build container.
This key can be listed multiple times.
This is equivalent to the --dns option of podman build.
DNSOption=
Set custom DNS options.
This key can be listed multiple times.
This is equivalent to the --dns-option option of podman build.
DNSSearch=
Set custom DNS search domains. Use DNSSearch=. to remove the search domain.
This key can be listed multiple times.
This is equivalent to the --dns-search option of podman build.
Environment=
Add a value (e.g. env=value) to the built image. This uses the same format as services in systemd
⟨https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.exec.html#Environment=⟩ and can be listed
multiple times.
File=
Specifies a Containerfile which contains instructions for building the image. A URL starting with
http(s):// allows you to specify a remote Containerfile to be downloaded. Note that for a given relative
path to a Containerfile, or when using a http(s):// URL, you also must set SetWorkingDirectory= in order
for podman build to find a valid context directory for the resources specified in the Containerfile.
Note that setting a File= field is mandatory for a .build file, unless SetWorkingDirectory (or a
WorkingDirectory in the Service group) has also been set.
This is equivalent to the --file option of podman build.
ForceRM=
Always remove intermediate containers after a build, even if the build fails (default true).
This is equivalent to the --force-rm option of podman build.
GlobalArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly between podman and build in the generated file. It
can be used to access Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is
unaware of what unexpected interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use
this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
GroupAdd=
Assign additional groups to the primary user running within the container process. Also supports the
keep-groups special flag.
This is equivalent to the --group-add option of podman build.
IgnoreFile=
Path to an alternate .containerignore file to use when building the image. Note that when using a
relative path you should also set SetWorkingDirectory=
This is equivalent to the --ignorefile option of podman build.
ImageTag=
Specifies the name which is assigned to the resulting image if the build process completes successfully.
This is equivalent to the --tag option of podman build.
This key can be listed multiple times. The first instance will be used as the name of the created
artifact when the .build file is referenced by another Quadlet unit.
Label=
Add an image label (e.g. label=value) to the image metadata. Can be used multiple times.
This is equivalent to the --label option of podman build.
Network=
Sets the configuration for network namespaces when handling RUN instructions. This has the same format as
the --network option to podman build. For example, use host to use the host network, or none to not set
up networking.
Special case:
• If the name of the network ends with .network, Quadlet will look for the corresponding .network Quadlet
unit. If found, Quadlet will use the name of the Network set in the Unit, otherwise, systemd-$name is
used. The generated systemd service contains a dependency on the service unit generated for that
.network unit, or on $name-network.service if the .network unit is not found. Note: the corresponding
.network file must exist.
This key can be listed multiple times.
PodmanArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly to the end of the podman build command in the
generated file (right before the image name in the command line). It can be used to access Podman
features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is unaware of what unexpected
interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Pull=
Set the image pull policy.
This is equivalent to the --pull option of podman build.
Retry=
Number of times to retry the image pull when a HTTP error occurs. Equivalent to the Podman --retry
option.
RetryDelay=
Delay between retries. Equivalent to the Podman --retry-delay option.
Secret=
Pass secret information used in Containerfile build stages in a safe way.
This is equivalent to the --secret option of podman build and generally has the form secret[,opt=opt
...].
SetWorkingDirectory=
Provide context (a working directory) to podman build. Supported values are a path, a URL, or the special
keys file or unit to set the context directory to the parent directory of the file from the File= key or
to that of the Quadlet .build unit file, respectively. This allows Quadlet to resolve relative paths.
When using one of the special keys (file or unit), the WorkingDirectory field of the Service group of the
Systemd service unit will also be set to accordingly. Alternatively, users can explicitly set the
WorkingDirectory field of the Service group in the .build file. Please note that if the WorkingDirectory
field of the Service group is set by the user, Quadlet will not overwrite it even if SetWorkingDirectory
is set to file or unit.
By providing a URL to SetWorkingDirectory= you can instruct podman build to clone a Git repository or
download an archive file extracted to a temporary location by podman build as build context. Note that in
this case, the WorkingDirectory of the Systemd service unit is left untouched by Quadlet.
Note that providing context directory is mandatory for a .build file, unless a File= key has also been
provided.
Target=
Set the target build stage to build. Commands in the Containerfile after the target stage are skipped.
This is equivalent to the --target option of podman build.
TLSVerify=
Require HTTPS and verification of certificates when contacting registries.
This is equivalent to the --tls-verify option of podman build.
Variant=
Override the default architecture variant of the container image to be built.
This is equivalent to the --variant option of podman build.
Volume=
Mount a volume to containers when executing RUN instructions during the build. This is equivalent to the
--volume option of podman build, and generally has the form [[SOURCE-VOLUME|HOST-DIR:]CONTAINER-
DIR[:OPTIONS]].
If SOURCE-VOLUME starts with ., Quadlet resolves the path relative to the location of the unit file.
Special case:
• If SOURCE-VOLUME ends with .volume, Quadlet will look for the corresponding .volume Quadlet unit. If
found, Quadlet will use the name of the Volume set in the Unit, otherwise, systemd-$name is used. The
generated systemd service contains a dependency on the service unit generated for that .volume unit, or
on $name-volume.service if the .volume unit is not found. Note: the corresponding .volume file must
exist.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Image units [Image]
Image files are named with a .image extension and contain a section [Image] describing the container
image pull command. The generated service is a one-time command that ensures that the image exists on the
host, pulling it if needed.
Using image units allows containers and volumes to depend on images being automatically pulled. This is
particularly interesting when using special options to control image pulls.
Valid options for [Image] are listed below:
┌───────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Image] options │ podman image pull equivalent │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ AllTags=true │ --all-tags │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Arch=aarch64 │ --arch=aarch64 │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ AuthFile=/etc/registry/auth.json │ --authfile=/etc/registry/auth.json │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ CertDir=/etc/registry/certs │ --cert-dir=/etc/registry/certs │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ContainersConfModule=/etc/nvd.conf │ --module=/etc/nvd.conf │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Creds=myname:mypassword │ --creds=myname:mypassword │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DecryptionKey=/etc/registry.key │ --decryption-key=/etc/registry.key │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GlobalArgs=--log-level=debug │ --log-level=debug │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Image=quay.io/centos/centos:latest │ podman image pull quay.io/centos/centos:latest │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ImageTag=quay.io/centos/centos:latest │ Use this name when resolving .image references │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ OS=windows │ --os=windows │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PodmanArgs=--os=linux │ --os=linux │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Policy=always │ --policy=always │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Retry=5 │ --retry=5 │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ RetryDelay=10s │ --retry-delay=10s │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ TLSVerify=false │ --tls-verify=false │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Variant=arm/v7 │ --variant=arm/v7 │
└───────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
AllTags=
All tagged images in the repository are pulled.
This is equivalent to the Podman --all-tags option.
Arch=
Override the architecture, defaults to hosts, of the image to be pulled.
This is equivalent to the Podman --arch option.
AuthFile=
Path of the authentication file.
This is equivalent to the Podman --authfile option.
CertDir=
Use certificates at path (*.crt, *.cert, *.key) to connect to the registry.
This is equivalent to the Podman --cert-dir option.
ContainersConfModule=
Load the specified containers.conf(5) module. Equivalent to the Podman --module option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Creds=
The [username[:password]] to use to authenticate with the registry, if required.
This is equivalent to the Podman --creds option.
DecryptionKey=
The [key[:passphrase]] to be used for decryption of images.
This is equivalent to the Podman --decryption-key option.
GlobalArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly between podman and image in the generated file. It
can be used to access Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is
unaware of what unexpected interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use
this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Image=
The image to pull. It is recommended to use a fully qualified image name rather than a short name, both
for performance and robustness reasons.
The format of the name is the same as when passed to podman pull. So, it supports using :tag or digests
to guarantee the specific image version.
ImageTag=
Actual FQIN of the referenced Image. Only meaningful when source is a file or directory archive.
For example, an image saved into a docker-archive with the following Podman command:
podman image save --format docker-archive --output /tmp/archive-file.tar quay.io/podman/stable:latest
requires setting - Image=docker-archive:/tmp/archive-file.tar - ImageTag=quay.io/podman/stable:latest
OS=
Override the OS, defaults to hosts, of the image to be pulled.
This is equivalent to the Podman --os option.
PodmanArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly to the end of the podman image pull command in the
generated file (right before the image name in the command line). It can be used to access Podman
features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is unaware of what unexpected
interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Policy=
The pull policy to use when pulling the image.
This is equivalent to the Podman --policy option.
Retry=
Number of times to retry the image pull when a HTTP error occurs. Equivalent to the Podman --retry
option.
RetryDelay=
Delay between retries. Equivalent to the Podman --retry-delay option.
TLSVerify=
Require HTTPS and verification of certificates when contacting registries.
This is equivalent to the Podman --tls-verify option.
Variant=
Override the default architecture variant of the container image.
This is equivalent to the Podman --variant option.
Artifact units [Artifact]
WARNING: Experimental Unit
This unit is considered experimental and still in development. Inputs, options, and outputs are all
subject to change.
Artifact units are named with a .artifact extension and contain a [Artifact] section describing the
container artifact pull command. The generated service is a one-time command that ensures that the
artifact exists on the host, pulling it if needed.
Using artifact units allows containers to depend on artifacts being automatically pulled. This is
particularly useful for managing artifacts that containers need to mount or access, the Artifact key is
mandatory inside of the [Artifact] unit.
Valid options for [Artifact] are listed below:
┌──────────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Artifact] options │ podman artifact pull equivalent │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Artifact=quay.io/foobar/artifact:special │ podman artifact pull quay.io/foobar/artifact:special │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ AuthFile=/etc/registry/auth.json │ --authfile=/etc/registry/auth.json │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ CertDir=/etc/registry/certs │ --cert-dir=/etc/registry/certs │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ContainersConfModule=/etc/nvd.conf │ --module=/etc/nvd.conf │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Creds=username:password │ --creds=username:password │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DecryptionKey=/etc/registry.key │ --decryption-key=/etc/registry.key │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GlobalArgs=--log-level=debug │ --log-level=debug │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PodmanArgs=--pull never │ --pull never │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Quiet=true │ --quiet │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Retry=5 │ --retry=5 │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ RetryDelay=10s │ --retry-delay=10s │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ServiceName=my-artifact │ Set the systemd service name to my-artifact.service │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ TLSVerify=false │ --tls-verify=false │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Artifact=
The artifact to pull from a registry onto the local machine. This is the only required key for artifact
units.
It is required to use a fully qualified artifact name rather than a short name, both for performance and
robustness reasons.
AuthFile=
Path of the authentication file.
This is equivalent to the Podman --authfile option.
CertDir=
Use certificates at path (*.crt, *.cert, *.key) to connect to the registry.
This is equivalent to the Podman --cert-dir option.
ContainersConfModule=
Load the specified containers.conf(5) module. Equivalent to the Podman --module option.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Creds=
The credentials to use when contacting the registry in the format [username[:password]].
This is equivalent to the Podman --creds option.
DecryptionKey=
The [key[:passphrase]] to be used for decryption of artifacts.
This is equivalent to the Podman --decryption-key option.
GlobalArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly between podman and artifact in the generated file.
It can be used to access Podman features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is
unaware of what unexpected interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use
this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
PodmanArgs=
This key contains a list of arguments passed directly to the end of the podman artifact pull command in
the generated file (right before the artifact name in the command line). It can be used to access Podman
features otherwise unsupported by the generator. Since the generator is unaware of what unexpected
interactions can be caused by these arguments, it is not recommended to use this option.
The format of this is a space separated list of arguments, which can optionally be individually escaped
to allow inclusion of whitespace and other control characters.
This key can be listed multiple times.
Quiet=
Suppress output information when pulling artifacts.
This is equivalent to the Podman --quiet option.
Retry=
Number of times to retry the artifact pull when a HTTP error occurs. Equivalent to the Podman --retry
option.
RetryDelay=
Delay between retries. Equivalent to the Podman --retry-delay option.
ServiceName=
The (optional) name of the systemd service. If this is not specified, the default value is the same name
as the unit, but with a -artifact suffix, i.e. a $name.artifact file creates a $name-artifact.service
systemd service.
TLSVerify=
Require HTTPS and verification of certificates when contacting registries.
This is equivalent to the Podman --tls-verify option.
Quadlet section [Quadlet]
Some quadlet specific configuration is shared between different unit types. Those settings can be
configured in the [Quadlet] section.
Valid options for [Quadlet] are listed below:
┌───────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Quadlet] options │ Description │
├───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DefaultDependencies=false │ Disable implicit network dependencies │
│ │ to the unit │
└───────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
DefaultDependencies=
Add Quadlet's default network dependencies to the unit (default is true).
When set to false, Quadlet will not add a dependency (After=, Wants=) to network-online.target/podman-
user-wait-network-online.service to the generated unit.
Note, this option is set in the [Quadlet] section. The systemd [Unit] section has an option with the same
name but a different meaning.
EXAMPLES
Example test.container:
[Unit]
Description=A minimal container
[Container]
# Use the centos image
Image=quay.io/centos/centos:latest
# Use volume and network defined below
Volume=test.volume:/data
Network=test.network
# In the container we just run sleep
Exec=sleep 60
[Service]
# Restart service when sleep finishes
Restart=always
# Extend Timeout to allow time to pull the image
TimeoutStartSec=900
# ExecStartPre flag and other systemd commands can go here, see systemd.unit(5) man page.
ExecStartPre=/usr/share/mincontainer/setup.sh
[Install]
# Start by default on boot
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target
Example test.kube:
[Unit]
Description=A kubernetes yaml based service
Before=local-fs.target
[Kube]
Yaml=/opt/k8s/deployment.yml
[Install]
# Start by default on boot
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target
Example for locally built image to be used in a container with build-specific arguments:
test.build
[Build]
# Tag the image to be built
ImageTag=localhost/imagename
# Set the working directory to the path of the unit file,
# expecting to find a Containerfile/Dockerfile
# + other files needed to build the image
SetWorkingDirectory=unit
# Set build arguments VERSION and DEBUG
BuildArg=VERSION=1.0
DEBUG=false
test.container
[Container]
Image=test.build
Example test.volume:
[Volume]
User=root
Group=root
Label=org.test.Key=value
Example test.network:
[Network]
Subnet=172.16.0.0/24
Gateway=172.16.0.1
IPRange=172.16.0.0/28
Label=org.test.Key=value
Example test.artifact to only pull the artifact using one auth file:
[Artifact]
Artifact=quay.io/example/my-artifact:latest
AuthFile=/etc/registry/auth.json
TLSVerify=false
Example usage where a container depends on an artifact:
my-artifact.artifact:
[Artifact]
Artifact=quay.io/example/my-config:latest
my-app.container:
[Container]
Image=quay.io/example/my-app:latest
Mount=type=artifact,source=my-artifact.artifact,destination=/etc/config
Example for Container in a Pod:
test.pod
[Pod]
PodName=test
centos.container
[Container]
Image=quay.io/centos/centos:latest
Exec=sh -c "sleep inf"
Pod=test.pod
Example for a Pod with a oneshot Startup Task:
test.pod
[Pod]
PodName=test
ExitPolicy=continue
startup-task.container
[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
[Container]
Pod=test.pod
Image=quay.io/centos/centos:latest
Exec=sh -c "echo 'setup starting'; sleep 2; echo 'setup complete'"
app.container
[Unit]
Requires=startup-task.container
After=startup-task.container
[Container]
Pod=test.pod
Image=quay.io/centos/centos:latest
Exec=sh -c "echo 'app running.'; sleep 30"
Example s3fs.volume:
For further details, please see the s3fs-fuse project. Remember to read the FAQ
NOTE: Enabling the cache massively speeds up access and write times on static files/objects.
However, use_cache is UNBOUNDED!
Be careful, it will fill up with any files accessed on the s3 bucket through the file system.
Please remember to set S3_BUCKET, PATH, AWS_REGION. CACHE_DIRECTORY should be set up by systemd
[Service]
CacheDirectory=s3fs
ExecStartPre=/usr/local/bin/aws s3api put-object --bucket ${S3_BUCKET} --key ${PATH}/
[Volume]
Device=${S3_BUCKET}:/${PATH}
Type=fuse.s3fs
VolumeName=s3fs-volume
Options=iam_role,endpoint=${AWS_REGION},use_xattr,listobjectsv2,del_cache,use_cache=${CACHE_DIRECTORY}
# `iam_role` assumes inside EC2, if not, Use `profile=` instead
SEE ALSO
systemd.unit(5), systemd.service(5), systemd-analyze(1), podman-run(1), podman-network-create(1), podman-
auto-update(1)
podman-systemd.unit(5)