% podman(1) podman-create - Create a new container % Dan Walsh
podman create - Create a new container
podman create [options [...]] IMAGE [COMMAND] [ARG...]
Creates a writeable container layer over the specified image and prepares it for running the specified command. The container ID is then printed to STDOUT. This is similar to podman run -d except the container is never started. You can then use the podman start <container_id> command to start the container at any point.
The initial status of the container created with podman create is 'created'.
--add-host=[] Add a custom host-to-IP mapping (host:ip)
Add a line to /etc/hosts. The format is hostname:ip. The --add-host option can be set multiple times.
-a, --attach=[] Attach to STDIN, STDOUT or STDERR.
In foreground mode (the default when -d is not specified), podman run can start the process in the container and attach the console to the process's standard input, output, and standard error. It can even pretend to be a TTY (this is what most commandline executables expect) and pass along signals. The -a option can be set for each of stdin, stdout, and stderr.
--blkio-weight=0 Block IO weight (relative weight) accepts a weight value between 10 and 1000.
--blkio-weight-device=[]
Block IO weight (relative device weight, format: DEVICE_NAME:WEIGHT).
--cap-add=[] Add Linux capabilities
--cap-drop=[] Drop Linux capabilities
--cgroup-parent="" Path to cgroups under which the cgroup for the container will be created. If the path is not absolute, the path is considered to be relative to the cgroups path of the init process. Cgroups will be created if they do not already exist.
--cidfile="" Write the container ID to the file
--cpu-count=0 Limit the number of CPUs available for execution by the container.
On Windows Server containers, this is approximated as a percentage of total CPU usage.
On Windows Server containers, the processor resource controls are mutually exclusive, the order of precedence is CPUCount first, then CPUShares, and CPUPercent last.--cpu-period=0 Limit the CPU CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) period
Limit the container's CPU usage. This flag tell the kernel to restrict the container's CPU usage to the period you specify.--cpu-quota=0 Limit the CPU CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) quota
Limit the container's CPU usage. By default, containers run with the full CPU resource. This flag tell the kernel to restrict the container's CPU usage to the quota you specify.
--cpu-rt-period=0 Limit the CPU real-time period in microseconds
Limit the container's Real Time CPU usage. This flag tell the kernel to restrict the container's Real Time CPU usage to the period you specify.
--cpu-rt-runtime=0 Limit the CPU real-time runtime in microseconds
Limit the containers Real Time CPU usage. This flag tells the kernel to limit the amount of time in a given CPU period Real Time tasks may consume. Ex: Period of 1,000,000us and Runtime of 950,000us means that this container could consume 95% of available CPU and leave the remaining 5% to normal priority tasks.
The sum of all runtimes across containers cannot exceed the amount allotted to the parent cgroup.
--cpu-shares=0 CPU shares (relative weight)
By default, all containers get the same proportion of CPU cycles. This proportion can be modified by changing the container's CPU share weighting relative to the weighting of all other running containers.
To modify the proportion from the default of 1024, use the --cpu-shares flag to set the weighting to 2 or higher.
The proportion will only apply when CPU-intensive processes are running. When tasks in one container are idle, other containers can use the left-over CPU time. The actual amount of CPU time will vary depending on the number of containers running on the system.
For example, consider three containers, one has a cpu-share of 1024 and two others have a cpu-share setting of 512. When processes in all three containers attempt to use 100% of CPU, the first container would receive 50% of the total CPU time. If you add a fourth container with a cpu-share of 1024, the first container only gets 33% of the CPU. The remaining containers receive 16.5%, 16.5% and 33% of the CPU.
On a multi-core system, the shares of CPU time are distributed over all CPU cores. Even if a container is limited to less than 100% of CPU time, it can use 100% of each individual CPU core.
For example, consider a system with more than three cores. If you start one container {C0} with -c=512 running one process, and another container {C1} with -c=1024 running two processes, this can result in the following division of CPU shares:
PID container CPU CPU share
100 {C0} 0 100% of CPU0
101 {C1} 1 100% of CPU1
102 {C1} 2 100% of CPU2--cpus=0.0 Number of CPUs. The default is 0.0 which means no limit.
--cpuset-cpus="" CPUs in which to allow execution (0-3, 0,1)
--cpuset-mems="" Memory nodes (MEMs) in which to allow execution (0-3, 0,1). Only effective on NUMA systems.
If you have four memory nodes on your system (0-3), use --cpuset-mems=0,1
then processes in your container will only use memory from the first
two memory nodes.
-d, --detach=true|false Detached mode: run the container in the background and print the new container ID. The default is false.
At any time you can run podman ps in the other shell to view a list of the running containers. You can reattach to a detached container with podman attach. If you choose to run a container in the detached mode, then you cannot use the -rm option.
When attached in the tty mode, you can detach from the container (and leave it
running) using a configurable key sequence. The default sequence is CTRL-p CTRL-q.
You configure the key sequence using the --detach-keys option or a configuration file.
See config-json(5) for documentation on using a configuration file.
--detach-keys=""
Override the key sequence for detaching a container. Format is a single character [a-Z] or ctrl-<value> where <value> is one of: a-z, @, ^, [, , or _.
--device=[] Add a host device to the container (e.g. --device=/dev/sdc:/dev/xvdc:rwm)
--device-read-bps=[] Limit read rate (bytes per second) from a device (e.g. --device-read-bps=/dev/sda:1mb)
--device-read-iops=[] Limit read rate (IO per second) from a device (e.g. --device-read-iops=/dev/sda:1000)
--device-write-bps=[] Limit write rate (bytes per second) to a device (e.g. --device-write-bps=/dev/sda:1mb)
--device-write-iops=[] Limit write rate (IO per second) to a device (e.g. --device-write-iops=/dev/sda:1000)
--dns=[] Set custom DNS servers
This option can be used to override the DNS configuration passed to the container. Typically this is necessary when the host DNS configuration is invalid for the container (e.g., 127.0.0.1). When this is the case the --dns flags is necessary for every run.
--dns-option=[] Set custom DNS options
--dns-search=[] Set custom DNS search domains (Use --dns-search=. if you don't wish to set the search domain)
--entrypoint="" Overwrite the default ENTRYPOINT of the image
This option allows you to overwrite the default entrypoint of the image. The ENTRYPOINT of an image is similar to a COMMAND because it specifies what executable to run when the container starts, but it is (purposely) more difficult to override. The ENTRYPOINT gives a container its default nature or behavior, so that when you set an ENTRYPOINT you can run the container as if it were that binary, complete with default options, and you can pass in more options via the COMMAND. But, sometimes an operator may want to run something else inside the container, so you can override the default ENTRYPOINT at runtime by using a --entrypoint and a string to specify the new ENTRYPOINT.
-e, --env=[] Set environment variables
This option allows you to specify arbitrary environment variables that are available for the process that will be launched inside of the container.
--env-file=[] Read in a line delimited file of environment variables
--expose=[] Expose a port, or a range of ports (e.g. --expose=3300-3310) to set up port redirection on the host system.
--group-add=[] Add additional groups to run as
--hostname="" Container host name
Sets the container host name that is available inside the container.
--help Print usage statement
-i, --interactive=true|false Keep STDIN open even if not attached. The default is false.
--ip="" Sets the container's interface IPv4 address (e.g. 172.23.0.9)
It can only be used in conjunction with --network for user-defined networks
--ip6="" Sets the container's interface IPv6 address (e.g. 2001:db8::1b99)
It can only be used in conjunction with --network for user-defined networks
--ipc="" Default is to create a private IPC namespace (POSIX SysV IPC) for the container 'container:<name|id>': reuses another container shared memory, semaphores and message queues 'host': use the host shared memory,semaphores and message queues inside the container. Note: the host mode gives the container full access to local shared memory and is therefore considered insecure.
--kernel-memory=""
Kernel memory limit (format: <number>[<unit>], where unit = b, k, m or g)
Constrains the kernel memory available to a container. If a limit of 0
is specified (not using --kernel-memory), the container's kernel memory
is not limited. If you specify a limit, it may be rounded up to a multiple
of the operating system's page size and the value can be very large,
millions of trillions.
-l, --label=[] Add metadata to a container (e.g., --label com.example.key=value)
--label-file=[] Read in a line delimited file of labels
--link-local-ip=[] Add one or more link-local IPv4/IPv6 addresses to the container's interface
--log-driver="json-file|syslog|journald|gelf|fluentd|awslogs|splunk|etwlogs|gcplogs|none"
Logging driver for the container. Default is defined by daemon --log-driver flag.
Warning: the podman logs command works only for the json-file and
journald logging drivers.
--log-opt=[] Logging driver specific options.
--mac-address="" Container MAC address (e.g. 92:d0:c6:0a:29:33)
Remember that the MAC address in an Ethernet network must be unique. The IPv6 link-local address will be based on the device's MAC address according to RFC4862.
-m, --memory="" Memory limit (format: [], where unit = b, k, m or g)
Allows you to constrain the memory available to a container. If the host supports swap memory, then the -m memory setting can be larger than physical RAM. If a limit of 0 is specified (not using -m), the container's memory is not limited. The actual limit may be rounded up to a multiple of the operating system's page size (the value would be very large, that's millions of trillions).
--memory-reservation="" Memory soft limit (format: [], where unit = b, k, m or g)
After setting memory reservation, when the system detects memory contention or low memory, containers are forced to restrict their consumption to their reservation. So you should always set the value below --memory, otherwise the hard limit will take precedence. By default, memory reservation will be the same as memory limit.
--memory-swap="LIMIT"
A limit value equal to memory plus swap. Must be used with the -m
(--memory) flag. The swap LIMIT should always be larger than -m
(--memory) value. By default, the swap LIMIT will be set to double
the value of --memory.
The format of LIMIT is <number>[<unit>]. Unit can be b (bytes),
k (kilobytes), m (megabytes), or g (gigabytes). If you don't specify a
unit, b is used. Set LIMIT to -1 to enable unlimited swap.
--memory-swappiness="" Tune a container's memory swappiness behavior. Accepts an integer between 0 and 100.
--name="" Assign a name to the container
The operator can identify a container in three ways: UUID long identifier (“f78375b1c487e03c9438c729345e54db9d20cfa2ac1fc3494b6eb60872e74778”) UUID short identifier (“f78375b1c487”) Name (“jonah”)
podman generates a UUID for each container, and if a name is not assigned to the container with --name then the daemon will also generate a random string name. The name is useful any place you need to identify a container. This works for both background and foreground containers.
--network="bridge" Set the Network mode for the container 'bridge': create a network stack on the default bridge 'none': no networking 'container:<name|id>': reuse another container's network stack 'host': use the podman host network stack. Note: the host mode gives the container full access to local system services such as D-bus and is therefore considered insecure. '|': connect to a user-defined network
--network-alias=[] Add network-scoped alias for the container
--oom-kill-disable=true|false Whether to disable OOM Killer for the container or not.
--oom-score-adj="" Tune the host's OOM preferences for containers (accepts -1000 to 1000)
--pid="" Set the PID mode for the container Default is to create a private PID namespace for the container 'container:<name|id>': join another container's PID namespace 'host': use the host's PID namespace for the container. Note: the host mode gives the container full access to local PID and is therefore considered insecure.
--pids-limit=""
Tune the container's pids limit. Set -1 to have unlimited pids for the container.
--pod="" Run container in an existing pod
--privileged=true|false Give extended privileges to this container. The default is false.
By default, podman containers are “unprivileged” (=false) and cannot, for example, modify parts of the kernel. This is because by default a container is not allowed to access any devices. A “privileged” container is given access to all devices.
When the operator executes podman run --privileged, podman enables access to all devices on the host as well as set turn off most of the security messurs protecting the host from the container.
-p, --publish=[] Publish a container's port, or range of ports, to the host
Format: ip:hostPort:containerPort | ip::containerPort | hostPort:containerPort | containerPort
Both hostPort and containerPort can be specified as a range of ports.
When specifying ranges for both, the number of container ports in the range must match the number of host ports in the range.
(e.g., podman run -p 1234-1236:1222-1224 --name thisWorks -t busybox
but not podman run -p 1230-1236:1230-1240 --name RangeContainerPortsBiggerThanRangeHostPorts -t busybox)
With ip: podman run -p 127.0.0.1:$HOSTPORT:$CONTAINERPORT --name CONTAINER -t someimage
Use podman port to see the actual mapping: podman port CONTAINER $CONTAINERPORT
-P, --publish-all=true|false Publish all exposed ports to random ports on the host interfaces. The default is false.
When set to true publish all exposed ports to the host interfaces. The
default is false. If the operator uses -P (or -p) then podman will make the
exposed port accessible on the host and the ports will be available to any
client that can reach the host. When using -P, podman will bind any exposed
port to a random port on the host within an ephemeral port range defined by
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range. To find the mapping between the host
ports and the exposed ports, use podman port.
--quiet, -q
Suppress output information when pulling images
--read-only=true|false Mount the container's root filesystem as read only.
By default a container will have its root filesystem writable allowing processes
to write files anywhere. By specifying the --read-only flag the container will have
its root filesystem mounted as read only prohibiting any writes.
--rm=true|false
Automatically remove the container when it exits. The default is false.
--rm flag can work together with -d, and auto-removal will be done on daemon side. Note that it's
incompatible with any restart policy other than none.
--security-opt=[] Security Options
"label=user:USER" : Set the label user for the container
"label=role:ROLE" : Set the label role for the container
"label=type:TYPE" : Set the label type for the container
"label=level:LEVEL" : Set the label level for the container
"label=disable" : Turn off label confinement for the container
"no-new-privileges" : Disable container processes from gaining additional privileges
"seccomp=unconfined" : Turn off seccomp confinement for the container
"seccomp=profile.json : White listed syscalls seccomp Json file to be used as a seccomp filter
"apparmor=unconfined" : Turn off apparmor confinement for the container
"apparmor=your-profile" : Set the apparmor confinement profile for the container--shm-size=""
Size of /dev/shm. The format is <number><unit>. number must be greater than 0.
Unit is optional and can be b (bytes), k (kilobytes), m(megabytes), or g (gigabytes).
If you omit the unit, the system uses bytes. If you omit the size entirely, the system uses 64m.
--sig-proxy=true|false Proxy received signals to the process (non-TTY mode only). SIGCHLD, SIGSTOP, and SIGKILL are not proxied. The default is true.
--stop-signal=SIGTERM Signal to stop a container. Default is SIGTERM.
--stop-timeout=10 Timeout (in seconds) to stop a container. Default is 10.
--storage-opt=[] Storage driver options per container
$ podman create -it --storage-opt size=120G fedora /bin/bash
This (size) will allow to set the container rootfs size to 120G at creation time.
This option is only available for the devicemapper, btrfs, overlay2 and zfs graph drivers.
For the devicemapper, btrfs and zfs storage drivers, user cannot pass a size less than the Default BaseFS Size.
For the overlay2 storage driver, the size option is only available if the backing fs is xfs and mounted with the pquota mount option.
Under these conditions, user can pass any size less then the backing fs size.
--sysctl=SYSCTL Configure namespaced kernel parameters at runtime
IPC Namespace - current sysctls allowed:
kernel.msgmax, kernel.msgmnb, kernel.msgmni, kernel.sem, kernel.shmall, kernel.shmmax, kernel.shmmni, kernel.shm_rmid_forced Sysctls beginning with fs.mqueue.*
Note: if you use the --ipc=host option these sysctls will not be allowed.
Network Namespace - current sysctls allowed: Sysctls beginning with net.*
Note: if you use the --network=host option these sysctls will not be allowed.
--tmpfs=[] Create a tmpfs mount
Mount a temporary filesystem (tmpfs) mount into a container, for example:
$ podman run -d --tmpfs /tmp:rw,size=787448k,mode=1777 my_image
This command mounts a tmpfs at /tmp within the container. The supported mount
options are the same as the Linux default mount flags. If you do not specify
any options, the systems uses the following options:
rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=65536k.
-t, --tty=true|false Allocate a pseudo-TTY. The default is false.
When set to true podman will allocate a pseudo-tty and attach to the standard input of the container. This can be used, for example, to run a throwaway interactive shell. The default is false.
Note: The -t option is incompatible with a redirection of the podman client standard input.
--ulimit=[] Ulimit options
-u, --user="" Sets the username or UID used and optionally the groupname or GID for the specified command.
The followings examples are all valid: --user [user | user:group | uid | uid:gid | user:gid | uid:group ]
Without this argument the command will be run as root in the container.
--userns=""
Set the usernamespace mode for the container when userns-remap option is enabled.
host: use the host usernamespace and enable all privileged options (e.g., pid=host or --privileged).
--uts=host Set the UTS mode for the container host: use the host's UTS namespace inside the container. Note: the host mode gives the container access to changing the host's hostname and is therefore considered insecure.
-v|--volume[=[HOST-DIR:CONTAINER-DIR[:OPTIONS]]]
Create a bind mount. If you specify, -v /HOST-DIR:/CONTAINER-DIR, podman
bind mounts /HOST-DIR in the host to /CONTAINER-DIR in the podman
container. The OPTIONS are a comma delimited list and can be:
- [rw|ro]
- [z|Z]
- [
[r]shared|[r]slave|[r]private]
The CONTAINER-DIR must be an absolute path such as /src/docs. The HOST-DIR
must be an absolute path as well. podman bind-mounts the HOST-DIR to the
path you specify. For example, if you supply the /foo value, podman creates a bind-mount.
You can specify multiple -v options to mount one or more mounts to a container.
You can add :ro or :rw suffix to a volume to mount it read-only or
read-write mode, respectively. By default, the volumes are mounted read-write.
See examples.
Labeling systems like SELinux require that proper labels are placed on volume content mounted into a container. Without a label, the security system might prevent the processes running inside the container from using the content. By default, podman does not change the labels set by the OS.
To change a label in the container context, you can add either of two suffixes
:z or :Z to the volume mount. These suffixes tell podman to relabel file
objects on the shared volumes. The z option tells podman that two containers
share the volume content. As a result, podman labels the content with a shared
content label. Shared volume labels allow all containers to read/write content.
The Z option tells podman to label the content with a private unshared label.
Only the current container can use a private volume.
By default bind mounted volumes are private. That means any mounts done
inside container will not be visible on host and vice-a-versa. One can change
this behavior by specifying a volume mount propagation property. Making a
volume shared mounts done under that volume inside container will be
visible on host and vice-a-versa. Making a volume slave enables only one
way mount propagation and that is mounts done on host under that volume
will be visible inside container but not the other way around.
To control mount propagation property of volume one can use :[r]shared,
:[r]slave or :[r]private propagation flag. Propagation property can
be specified only for bind mounted volumes and not for internal volumes or
named volumes. For mount propagation to work source mount point (mount point
where source dir is mounted on) has to have right propagation properties. For
shared volumes, source mount point has to be shared. And for slave volumes,
source mount has to be either shared or slave.
Use df <source-dir> to figure out the source mount and then use
findmnt -o TARGET,PROPAGATION <source-mount-dir> to figure out propagation
properties of source mount. If findmnt utility is not available, then one
can look at mount entry for source mount point in /proc/self/mountinfo. Look
at optional fields and see if any propagaion properties are specified.
shared:X means mount is shared, master:X means mount is slave and if
nothing is there that means mount is private.
To change propagation properties of a mount point use mount command. For
example, if one wants to bind mount source directory /foo one can do
mount --bind /foo /foo and mount --make-private --make-shared /foo. This
will convert /foo into a shared mount point. Alternatively one can directly
change propagation properties of source mount. Say / is source mount for
/foo, then use mount --make-shared / to convert / into a shared mount.
To disable automatic copying of data from the container path to the volume, use
the nocopy flag. The nocopy flag can be set on bind mounts and named volumes.
-w, --workdir="" Working directory inside the container
The default working directory for running binaries within a container is the root directory (/). The image developer can set a different default with the WORKDIR instruction. The operator can override the working directory by using the -w option.
August 2014, updated by Sven Dowideit SvenDowideit@home.org.au September 2014, updated by Sven Dowideit SvenDowideit@home.org.au November 2014, updated by Sven Dowideit SvenDowideit@home.org.au October 2017, converted from Docker documentation to podman by Dan Walsh for podman dwalsh@redhat.com