Podlet generates podman quadlet files from a podman command or a compose file.
Demo created with autocast. You can also view the demo on asciinema.
- Designed for podman v4.7.0 and newer
- Supports the following podman commands:
podman run
podman kube play
podman network create
podman volume create
- Convert a (docker) compose file to:
- Multiple quadlet files
- A pod with a quadlet kube file and Kubernetes YAML
- Generate from an existing container, network, or volume
- Write to stdout or to a file
- Options for including common systemd unit options
- Checks for existing systemd services to avoid conflict
- Opt-out with
--skip-services-check
- Opt-out with
Podlet can be acquired in several ways:
- Download a prebuilt binary from releases
- As a container:
podman run quay.io/k9withabone/podlet
- Container images are available on quay.io and docker hub
- Use cargo-binstall to get a prebuilt binary:
cargo binstall podlet
- Build and install with
cargo install podlet
$ podlet -h
Generate podman quadlet files from a podman command or a compose file
Usage: podlet [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>
Commands:
podman Generate a podman quadlet file from a podman command
compose Generate podman quadlet files from a compose file
generate Generate a podman quadlet file from an existing container, network, or volume
help Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
Options:
-f, --file [<FILE>] Generate a file instead of printing to stdout
-u, --unit-directory Generate a file in the podman unit directory instead of printing to stdout [aliases: unit-dir]
-n, --name <NAME> Override the name of the generated file (without the extension)
--overwrite Overwrite existing files when generating a file
--skip-services-check Skip the check for existing services of the same name
-d, --description <DESCRIPTION> Add a description to the unit
--wants <WANTS> Add (weak) requirement dependencies to the unit
--requires <REQUIRES> Similar to --wants, but adds stronger requirement dependencies
--before <BEFORE> Configure ordering dependency between units
--after <AFTER> Configure ordering dependency between units
-i, --install Add an [Install] section to the unit
--wanted-by <WANTED_BY> Add (weak) parent dependencies to the unit
--required-by <REQUIRED_BY> Similar to --wanted-by, but adds stronger parent dependencies
-h, --help Print help (see more with '--help')
-V, --version Print version
See podlet --help
for more information.
$ podlet podman -h
Generate a podman quadlet file from a podman command
Usage: podlet podman <COMMAND>
Commands:
run Generate a podman quadlet `.container` file
kube Generate a podman quadlet `.kube` file
network Generate a podman quadlet `.network` file
volume Generate a podman quadlet `.volume` file
help Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
Options:
-h, --help Print help
To generate a quadlet file, just put podlet
in front of your podman command!
$ podlet podman run quay.io/podman/hello
# hello.container
[Container]
Image=quay.io/podman/hello
This is useful for more complicated commands you are copying. For example, let's create a quadlet file for running caddy. We'll also use a few options for additional sections in the file.
$ podlet --file . --install --description Caddy \
podman run \
--restart always \
-p 8000:80 \
-p 8443:443 \
-v ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile:Z \
-v caddy_data:/data \
docker.io/library/caddy:latest
Wrote to file: ./caddy.container
$ cat caddy.container
[Unit]
Description=Caddy
[Container]
Image=docker.io/library/caddy:latest
PublishPort=8000:80
PublishPort=8443:443
Volume=./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile:Z
Volume=caddy_data:/data
[Service]
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
The name for the file was automatically pulled from the image name, but can be overridden with the --name
option.
Podlet also supports creating kube, network, and volume quadlet files.
$ podlet podman kube play --network pasta --userns auto caddy.yaml
# caddy.kube
[Kube]
Yaml=caddy.yaml
Network=pasta
UserNS=auto
$ podlet compose -h
Generate podman quadlet files from a compose file
Usage: podlet compose [OPTIONS] [COMPOSE_FILE]
Arguments:
[COMPOSE_FILE] The compose file to convert
Options:
--pod <POD> Create a Kubernetes YAML file for a pod instead of separate containers
-h, --help Print help (see more with '--help')
Let's return to the caddy example, say you have a compose file at compose-example.yaml
:
services:
caddy:
image: docker.io/library/caddy:latest
ports:
- 8000:80
- 8443:443
volumes:
- ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile:Z
- caddy-data:/data
volumes:
caddy-data:
podlet compose compose-example.yaml
will create a caddy.container
like so:
# caddy.container
[Container]
Image=docker.io/library/caddy:latest
PublishPort=8000:80
PublishPort=8443:443
Volume=./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile:Z
Volume=caddy-data:/data
If a compose file is not given, podlet will search for the following files in the current working directory, in order:
compose.yaml
compose.yml
docker-compose.yaml
docker-compose.yml
In addition, the --pod
option will generate Kubernetes YAML which groups all compose services in a pod.
$ podlet compose --pod caddy compose-example.yaml
# caddy.kube
[Kube]
Yaml=caddy-kube.yaml
---
# caddy-kube.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: caddy
spec:
containers:
- image: docker.io/library/caddy:latest
name: caddy
ports:
- containerPort: 80
hostPort: 8000
- containerPort: 443
hostPort: 8443
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /etc/caddy/Caddyfile:Z
name: caddy-etc-caddy-Caddyfile
- mountPath: /data
name: caddy-data
volumes:
- hostPath:
path: ./Caddyfile
name: caddy-etc-caddy-Caddyfile
- name: caddy-data
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: caddy-data
When converting compose files, not all options are supported by podman/quadlet. This is especially true when converting to a pod as some options must be applied to the pod as a whole. If podlet encounters an unsupported option an error will be returned. You will have to remove or comment out unsupported options to proceed.
See podlet compose --help
for more information.
$ podlet generate -h
Generate a podman quadlet file from an existing container, network, or volume
Usage: podlet generate <COMMAND>
Commands:
container Generate a quadlet file from an existing container
network Generate a quadlet file from an existing network
volume Generate a quadlet file from an existing volume
help Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
Options:
-h, --help Print help (see more with '--help')
If you have an existing container, network, or volume, you can use podlet generate
to create a quadlet file from it.
$ podman container create --name hello quay.io/podman/hello:latest
$ podlet generate container hello
# hello.container
[Container]
ContainerName=hello
Image=quay.io/podman/hello:latest
These commands require that podman
is installed and searchable from the PATH
environment variable.
See podlet generate --help
for more information.
While podlet can be used as-is in a container, passing the command to it; if you want to utilize some of the write-to-file functionality, or create quadlet files from compose files, additional volumes may need to be attached.
An example of a generic podman command that runs the most up-to-date version of podlet with the current directory and user's quadlet directory attached to the container would be:
podman run --rm --userns keep-id -e HOME -e XDG_CONFIG_HOME --user $(id -u) -v "$PWD":"$PWD" -v "$HOME/.config/containers/systemd/":"$HOME/.config/containers/systemd/" -w "$PWD" --security-opt label=disable --pull=newer quay.io/k9withabone/podlet
Please note that --security-opt label=disable
may be required for systems with SELinux. If your system does not use SELinux this may not be required.
Alternatively, if you just want podlet to read a specific compose file you can use:
podman run --rm -v ./compose.yaml:/compose.yaml:Z quay.io/k9withabone/podlet compose /compose.yaml
Podlet is not (yet) a validator for podman commands. Some podman options are incompatible with each other and most options require specific formatting and/or only accept certain values. However, a few options are fully parsed and validated in order to facilitate creating the quadlet file.
Podlet is meant to be used with podman v4.7.0 or newer. Some quadlet options are unavailable or behave differently with earlier versions of podman/quadlet.
Contributions, suggestions, and/or comments are appreciated! Feel free to create an issue, discussion, or pull request.
Podlet is a normal Rust project, so once Rust is installed, the source code can be cloned and built with:
git clone git@github.com:k9withabone/podlet.git
cd podlet
cargo build
Release builds are created with the dist
profile:
cargo build --profile dist
If you are submitting code changes in a pull request and would like to run the CI jobs locally, you can run the following commands:
- format:
cargo fmt --check
- clippy:
cargo clippy
- test:
cargo test
- build-container:
- Ensure the container builds for both x86 and ARM platforms.
podman build --platform linux/amd64 -t podlet .
podman build --platform linux/arm64/v8 -t podlet .
All source code for podlet is licensed under the Mozilla Public License v2.0. View the LICENSE file for more information.