This example comes from the ~/.zshrc file on my Mac.įinally, Figure 2 shows how you can now use Podman to manage your containers with the client to access the Podman installation inside the virtual machine.The first part of the configuration is very similar to a PowerShell function: Configuration PS6TestServer On a Linux or Mac machine, simply enter the following two lines in your shell configuration file (e.g., ~/.bashrc, or ~/.zshrc if you are on a Mac): export CONTAINER_SSHKEY=/Users/tscherf/tools/podman/.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/private_keyīe sure to use the correct paths. If you use the Podman Windows client, you can simply enter the data you need directly.
Podman supports some environment variables, so the client software knows the host on which the Podman domain socket is available and how authentication will take place.
To get it, simply download the appropriate installation file from the website, or in the case of macOS, install the software by calling brew install podman To manage your containers from the host system, you now need the Podman client. Entering vagrant ssh gets you direct shell access to the virtual machine. If everything has worked so far, the following command shows that a Fedora 33 Vagrant box is present on your system: vagrant box listįedora/33-cloud-base (virtualbox, 33.20201019.0)īy the way, Vagrant stores it in the user's home directory under ~/.vagrant.d/boxes/. From the directory in which the file is located, simply call vagrant to start the installation and setup of the virtual machine. The file really must be named Vagrantfile otherwise, Vagrant will not find it without help.
Once you have installed both VirtualBox and Vagrant, either with Homebrew or an installation archive, save the Vagrantfile from Listing 1 under the same name in a folder of your choice (e.g., ~/podman/). The complete setup of the virtual machine is handled by the Vagrantfile. On the Windows or Mac system, you then install only the Podman client software, which communicates with podman on the virtual machine over the Unix socket. Inside this system, you then install the Podman software and tell it to listen for incoming requests on a Unix socket. Listing 1 is a sample Vagrantfile that you can use to create a virtual machine again, this is based on VirtualBox with a Fedora operating system. The workflow required for this can be completely automated and scales very well, even if you are using a large number of virtual machines. Vagrant has long enjoyed a good reputation as a manager for virtual machines and is often used to create virtual machines based on Vagrant boxes and a Vagrantfile. In fact, work on developing this kind of software started, but the project was discontinued after some time in favor of Vagrant. It stands to reason that the appropriate counterpart for Docker Machine also exists for Podman. However, what does the situation look like if you want to use Podman as the container manager instead of Docker? Podman Instead of Docker įigure 1: The docker-machine command creates a virtual machine that then provides the Docker engine.ĭocker Machine also gives you access to the Docker container manager independently of Docker Desktop, so you can also develop container applications.
You can either download VirtualBox as an installation archive directly from the website, or if you want to install it on a Mac system, you can install it with the Homebrew package manager. The example in Figure 1 uses VirtualBox on a Mac for the virtual machine setup.
Docker Desktop requires at least Windows 10 or macOS 10.14, although you can still resort to Docker Machine in this case, which creates a virtual Linux system on the local host that you can then use to access the Docker engine. Older Systems Locked OutĪn older Windows or Mac machine, however, can be problematic.
For example, you also get the container orchestration tool Kubernetes delivered free with the software. Docker Desktop provides a Docker environment for these systems, with other components in addition to the Docker engine and the command-line client. For this, you have to resort to external software. However, the situation is different if you want to set up an environment for developing container applications on a Windows or Mac system.
The software is available from the repositories of almost all the well-known Linux distributions. If you are running a Linux system, you will not have much trouble using either Docker or Podman as a container manager.