How to install Podman in Debian/ubuntu

Posted on Thursday December 12/2019

podman is a tool for managing (Kubernetes) pods, containers and container images, available from https://github.com/containers/libpod

To install podman from scratch in Debian/ubuntu we need to have the below requirement met

golang >= 1.8 (stretch+)
docker-runc
conmon
CNI networking
ostree (Packaged)
libapparmor-dev

Let's begin with the Installation

First, update the system

apt -y update

Install Required dependency to build various podman related go lang library

apt -y install \
  vim \
  curl \
  gcc \
  make \
  cmake \
  git \
  btrfs-progs \
  golang-go \
  go-md2man \
  iptables \
  libassuan-dev \
  libc6-dev \
  libdevmapper-dev \
  libglib2.0-dev \
  libgpgme-dev \
  libgpg-error-dev \
  libostree-dev \
  libprotobuf-dev \
  libprotobuf-c-dev \
  libseccomp-dev \
  libselinux1-dev \
  libsystemd-dev \
  pkg-config \
  runc \
  uidmap \
  libapparmor-dev

check the runc version

The runc should at least spec: 1.0.1 otherwise you need to build your one

root@e20f7c67ee38:~# runc -version
runc version spec: 1.0.1-dev

install GOLANG

export GOPATH=~/go
git clone https://go.googlesource.com/go $GOPATH
cd $GOPATH
git checkout tags/go1.10.8  # optional
cd src
./all.bash
export PATH=$GOPATH/bin:$PATH

Install conmon

conmon is used to monitor OCI Runtimes. To build from source, use the following:

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/containers/conmon
cd conmon
export GOCACHE="$(mktemp -d)"
make
sudo make podman
sudo cp /usr/local/libexec/podman/conmon  /usr/local/bin/

Configure CNI

A basic network configuration can be achieved with:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/cni/net.d
curl -qsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/containers/libpod/master/cni/87-podman-bridge.conflist | sudo tee /etc/cni/net.d/87-podman-bridge.conf

The directory containing CNI plugin configuration files

cni_config_dir = "/etc/cni/net.d/"

Install CNI Plugins

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/containernetworking/plugins.git $GOPATH/src/github.com/containernetworking/plugins
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/containernetworking/plugins
./build_linux.sh
sudo mkdir -p /usr/libexec/cni
sudo cp bin/* /usr/libexec/cni

Others Directories where the CNI plugin binaries may be located

cni_plugin_dir = [
"/usr/libexec/cni",
"/usr/lib/cni",
"/usr/local/lib/cni",
"/opt/cni/bin"
]

Add Podman configuration registries,policy

cd ~
sudo mkdir -p /etc/containers
sudo curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectatomic/registries/master/registries.fedora -o /etc/containers/registries.conf
sudo curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/containers/skopeo/master/default-policy.json -o /etc/containers/policy.json

Install PODMAN

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/containers/libpod/ $GOPATH/src/github.com/containers/libpod
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/containers/libpod
make BUILDTAGS="selinux seccomp"
sudo make install PREFIX=/usr

Test Podman

root@e20f7c67ee38:~# podman help
manage pods and images

Usage:
  podman [flags]
  podman [command]

Available Commands:
  attach      Attach to a running container
  build       Build an image using instructions from Containerfiles
  commit      Create new image based on the changed container
  container   Manage Containers
  cp          Copy files/folders between a container and the local filesystem
  create      Create but do not start a container
  diff        Inspect changes on container's file systems
  events      Show podman events
  exec        Run a process in a running container
  export      Export container's filesystem contents as a tar archive
  generate    Generated structured data
  healthcheck Manage Healthcheck
  help        Help about any command
  history     Show history of a specified image
  image       Manage images
  images      List images in local storage
  import      Import a tarball to create a filesystem image
  info        Display podman system information
  init        Initialize one or more containers
  inspect     Display the configuration of a container or image
  kill        Kill one or more running containers with a specific signal
  load        Load an image from container archive
  login       Login to a container registry
  logout      Logout of a container registry
  logs        Fetch the logs of a container
  mount       Mount a working container's root filesystem
  network     Manage Networks
  pause       Pause all the processes in one or more containers
  play        Play a pod
  pod         Manage pods
  port        List port mappings or a specific mapping for the container
  ps          List containers
  pull        Pull an image from a registry
  push        Push an image to a specified destination
  restart     Restart one or more containers
  rm          Remove one or more containers
  rmi         Removes one or more images from local storage
  run         Run a command in a new container
  save        Save image to an archive
  search      Search registry for image
  start       Start one or more containers
  stats       Display a live stream of container resource usage statistics
  stop        Stop one or more containers
  system      Manage podman
  tag         Add an additional name to a local image
  top         Display the running processes of a container
  umount      Unmounts working container's root filesystem
  unpause     Unpause the processes in one or more containers
  unshare     Run a command in a modified user namespace
  varlink     Run varlink interface
  version     Display the Podman Version Information
  volume      Manage volumes
  wait        Block on one or more containers