podman

Updated

July 31, 2026

Overview

podman (Pod Manager) is a daemonless container engine for developing, managing, and running OCI (Open Container Initiative) containers on Linux systems. It supports rootless container execution out of the box and shares an interface compatible with Docker CLI.

Syntax

podman [command] [options]

Common Subcommands

Command Description
run Run a command in a new container
ps List containers
images List local container images
pull Pull an image from a registry
build Build a container image using a Containerfile or Dockerfile
exec Run a command inside an active container
stop Stop one or more running containers
rm Remove one or more containers
generate systemd Create systemd unit file for a container

Key Use Cases

  1. Running unprivileged (rootless) containers securely.
  2. Managing OCI container lifecycles without running a persistent system daemon.
  3. Integrating container workloads directly into systemd service units.

Examples with Explanations

Example 1: Running an Interactive Container

podman run -it --rm alpine sh

Runs an Alpine Linux container interactively and automatically removes it (--rm) when exited.

Example 2: Exposing Container Ports

podman run -d --name web -p 8080:80 nginx:alpine

Launches an NGINX container in detached mode (-d), mapping host port 8080 to container port 80.