Podman Desktop 1.2 Released: Compose and Kubernetes Support

https://podman-desktop.io/blog/podman-desktop-release-1.2

by twelvenmonkeys • 3 years ago

206 125 3 years ago

podman-desktop.io

SOLAR_FIELDS2• 3 years ago

Forgive my naïveté regarding Podman. On macOS, does this use the same virtualization approach that docker desktop uses?

dboreham• 3 years ago

Yes.

seaal• 3 years ago

Yes. Perhaps OrbStack[1] is what you're looking for.

[1] https://orbstack.dev/

SOLAR_FIELDS2• 3 years ago

Thanks I’m gonna try it out. Sucks that it’s closed source but I do so much work in containers these days that it’s worth it just for the speed

mogwire• 3 years ago

Orbstack also uses a virtual machine.

How does it work? Why is it fast?

OrbStack uses a lightweight Linux virtual machine with tightly-integrated, purpose-built services and networking written in a mix of Swift, Go, Rust, and C. See Architecture for more details.

bloopernova2• 3 years ago

Thank you for that link!

It's a very interesting product, it does use a VM, but seems to have some "special sauce" code to improve the speed of things. It also says it shares the kernel among multiple VMs. Very cool stuff.

mmcdermott• 3 years ago

Same basic approach in that it is a Linux VM that actually runs the containers, but it is based on qemu instead of VirtualBox.

alphabettsy• 3 years ago

Is Docker still using a VirtualBox based solution? I thought they were using the macOS virt framework.

mfer3• 3 years ago

To run Linux containers you will always need Linux somewhere. On macOS this would be in a VM that's usually managed by the tooling. Docker Desktop, Rancher Desktop, lima, and others all do this. On Windows you have the Windows Subsystem for Linux v2 that uses a VM.

For simplicity, the tooling often tries to make this simple and transparent to use.

pid-12• 3 years ago

Fun fact: in Linux, Docker Desktop also uses a managed VM.

https://docs.docker.com/desktop/faqs/linuxfaqs/#why-does-doc...

joaoqalves• 3 years ago

What's missing to fully replace Docker Desktop?

jchw• 3 years ago

Nothing for me: I use it as a Docker Desktop replacement at the moment. There aren't so many complex docker-compose setups I have to deal with, but everything works about as expected.

(Although honestly most of the time I'm using Podman it's on native Linux, so I don't use 99% of the stuff that's there anyway.)

mfer3• 3 years ago

That depends on what you need. For most people and use cases you can replace it with something like Rancher Desktop [1]. But, there are use cases and situations where you needed Docker Desktop.

Disclaimer, I started Rancher Desktop.

[1] https://rancherdesktop.io/

ducharmdev4• 3 years ago

I switched from podman to Rancher Desktop at work recently, and it's been a very smooth experience - thank you for your work!

pid-12• 3 years ago

I've been using Podman Desktop in Win11 for local development for about 6 months and I'd say nothing.

foobarbecue5• 3 years ago

Nothing good? Nothing bad?

I mean... if you're going to say nothing at all, no need to announce it...

v3ss0n3• 3 years ago

Lazydocker is all you need to replace docker desktop

justin_oaks2• 3 years ago

When I was running Docker Desktop on Windows, I never used the GUI. Instead I always ran commands (docker or docker-compose) on the command line. In that case, the major benefit to Docker Desktop was having it set up the Linux VM that you run Docker on. That is a huge benefit.

Lazydocker is awesome, though. Thanks for introducing it to me. I just installed it and I'm loving it. I've used Portainer in the past, but didn't like it enough to leave it running continuously.

jadbox3• 3 years ago

I'm very happy to see you better support for docker compose. I think about 50% of the time I find Kubernetes used in production/development when it could have just used Compose along with a simple Terraform or Pulumi deploy script.

Already__Taken• 3 years ago

ah the 1% of the time you do want to use something in kubernetes and you have a pile of compose is pretty demoralising though

cpitman• 3 years ago

I haven't run into the need to do that, but there is the Kompose project that exists to help with the conversion (https://kompose.io/)!

nonameiguess2• 3 years ago

I guess they stopped doing this and now consider the product mature from looking at their website, but Docker Compose used to tell you that it wasn't suitable or intended for production use. That seemed like a pretty good reason not to do it.

geerlingguy3• 3 years ago

Compose has its own footguns, but I've run a number of services with just Compose on a VM or direct on bare metal and the few little issues I've had were easy to debug and fix.

Very much unlike Kubernetes, where even a small deployment can sometimes be maddening to debug. Great for larger deployments where complexity is basically guaranteed, but anything that could run on one server with a hot spare is a great fit for Compose!

brazzledazzle2• 3 years ago

Docker compose falls apart when you need something clustered across nodes or any other multi-host deployment. Once you have to rip it apart it becomes way less appealing. Though I haven't tried it in a while and perhaps the ergonomics have changed.

flatline• 3 years ago

Docker swarm is supposed to be the migration target for these cases, but I’ve never actually used it.

jadbox3• 3 years ago

Not sure if I follow. Let's say I have 2 kinds of clusters with these sets of containers: A) 3 microserver containers on each machine B) Postgres container and a logging container

The A and B group can be implemented with docker compose and deployed to each cluster with pulumi/Terraform. Two or a hundred, it doesn't really matter how many cluster groupings you have.

vbezhenar7• 3 years ago

Docker compose is extremely basic. Even on a single node Kubernetes is more capable than docker compose. Ingresses, Services, Deployments, Cronjobs, Statefulsets. Awesome operators. Cert-manager. There're so many things I could easily do with Kubernetes that would require countless unmaintainable bash scripts and ad-hoc approaches with docker-compose.

preya2k• 3 years ago

For me, I really enjoy how basic it is. I’ve never missed any of these things for my simple single-host scenarios.

Demiurge• 3 years ago

Yes, but 50% of the projects the parent poster sees, and 90% of the projects that I see, do not require any of that.

c-hendricks• 3 years ago

Docker compose is extremely basic

Yup thanks for noticing, that's why I use it

MuffinFlavored2• 3 years ago

Awesome operators

https://github.com/operator-framework/awesome-operators archived since 2021 and now https://operatorhub.io/

I hadn't heard of this, interesting. Layers and layers of abstractions. What an interesting way to solve things. "It's YAML all the way down"?

badrequest• 3 years ago

I've never understood using K8s in local dev over docker-compose, but I can absolutely see why someone would use it production.

rzmmm• 3 years ago

If someone is working on complex kubernetes configuration, it's beneficial to have kubernetes in local dev environment, since it's trivial to test changes.

0xbadcafebee• 3 years ago

Why does Compose still only work on one server? I am perpetually perplexed that nobody has patched Compose to manage k8s resources, have its own multi-node support, or push Swarm more. How has nobody fixed this? The tool is 9 years old.

tecleandor• 3 years ago

Well there are two things:

Compose, "the binary" [1]. It used to be "just" a Python helper script that called Docker, used to deploy multiple containers in a common network easily. It was rewrited in Go, and now it's kind of a plugin for Docker. I think it's strongly tied to Docker primitives, and wouldn't be that easy to modify it to work on different container orchestrators.

But there's also Compose "the file format" [2]. There are tools, like Kompose[3], that understand the Compose format, and can use it to deploy in Kubernetes.

  1: https://github.com/docker/compose
  2: https://compose-spec.io/
  3: https://kompose.io/

nickstinemates• 3 years ago

At that point you basically have a kube yaml. So might as well use that since it knows about kube things.

throwaway1063822• 3 years ago

Is there a way to make Podman Desktop use the default system connection rather than the default podman machine?

When I do `podman ps` my client connects to my development VM that is not managed by podman, but I can't seem to find a way to make Podman Desktop do that.

freeplay• 3 years ago

podman system connection

That command will let you manage what instance the podman cli is connecting to

https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-system-conn...

throwaway1063822• 3 years ago

yeah, I've been using this for a while now but Podman Desktop doesn't seem to care about the setting and wants to make it's own VM on my machine

chenster2• 3 years ago

Do people still use Vagrant? Last time I tried Docker on Mac, it was painfully slow. So I kept using Vagrant, which used more disc space, but very fast, and the Intel Macbook pro fan never kicked in once like Docker did.

foobarbecue5• 3 years ago

I don't think speed is a matter of your container engine (Docker vs Vagrant) but what virtual machine you are using. I usually use Docker without any virtualization since I'm running linux containers on linux. I'm guessing when you say Vagrant, your're probably using VMware or something. I don't know what Docker on mac might be using since I avoid using mac.

chenster2• 3 years ago

I guess when I mentioned slow, it uses lots of resources on parent OS. Yes, it's Virtual Box I believe.

Art96815• 3 years ago

Containers on anything other than Linux run in a Virtual Machine. Depending on the platform, you may or may not have hardware acceleration. It's either using the software emulator (slow) or hardware acceleration. On the new M architecture, I believe Docker now supports Rosetta2 emulation via Apple's Hypervisor Framework so it is near native performance.

As far as Vagrant being faster than Docker, it's possible the qemu backend it uses was hardware accelerated and for whatever reason the Docker VM wasn't? Or perhaps you were using Docker Desktop which does take up a lot of compute capacity away? Try using the docker cli without docker desktop and see if it works better for you.

hu33• 3 years ago

Just a nit. Docker on Windows is near native-like performance, using WSL2.

WSL2 even supports running Linux GUI applications and GPU passthrough.

imiric3• 3 years ago

I wish Podman wouldn't be a Docker replica, but a standalone product that competes in the container ecosystem with innovative features.

Initially the main advantage it had over Docker was rootless mode, but this has been available in Docker for a while now. What currently sets Podman (Desktop/Compose) apart from its Docker counterparts?

I've also run into issues running some containers with Podman that work fine with Docker. I still use it for some simple use cases, but I'm wondering more why bother with a copycat product that only plays catch-up to Docker, and has its own set of issues. And, incidentally, is run by Red Hat, and by extension IBM, which are increasingly hostile to OSS.

hu33• 3 years ago

Docker network effect is too important to ignore. That would be like swimming against the current.

For example, Deno (https://deno.land/) initially launched with precarious compatiliblity with Node.js, but eventually had to make compromises and adapt so Node.js projects could migrate easier.

imiric3• 3 years ago

All of that can be accomplished by being compatible with the broader OCI ecosystem. But Red Hat explicitly tries to be a Docker replacement (they suggest `alias docker=podman`, which actually breaks in many ways), to the point where I'm not sure why I should bother using a product that will always play catch-up to the real thing. This Desktop and Compose announcement is part of that roadmap, and I'm just wondering what Podman does better than Docker at this point.

ragnese• 3 years ago

For example, Deno (https://deno.land/) initially launched with precarious compatiliblity with Node.js, but eventually had to make compromises and adapt so Node.js projects could migrate easier.

And we have yet to see if that ends up being the right call. These things are always really tough. On the one hand, compatibility with existing stuff makes migration easier, but then if it's not actually different enough, we have no reason to change to the new thing.

eriksjolund• 3 years ago

Podman can run a socket-activated network server (such as docker.io/library/nginx) with the "--network=none" option. This improves security.

totallywrong• 3 years ago

Docker still requires a daemon, even in rootless mode. Podman does not.

zamalek• 3 years ago

but a standalone product that competes in the container ecosystem with innovative features.

It has tons of features, but people don't pay attention to them due to the Docker being the lowest common denominator.

For example, there is absolutely no need for Compose. You create a pod and all the containers in it. You can then ask podman to generate all the systemd units for it.

I am also very worried about the IBM issue though, I wonder how long it will be until they slay this golden goose.

stryan• 3 years ago

Big thing for me is Podman being daemon-less, making it a lot easier to integrate with existing tools since you don't have to treat it as it's own thing. It's already had easy systemd integration for a while now[0] and with Quadlet[1] I don't even bother writing compose files anymore; I just add a [Container] or [Volume] section to the same unit file templates I use everywhere else and it's all taken care of. Though to be honest, I mostly used bash script over compose files anyway since podman-compose never really worked as well.

Someone else has already mentioned built in pod support, plus you can generate kube files from existing pods for easy deployment.

So you end up with this nice progression of managing:

1. one-off/short term containers with podman run

2. longer running containers with podman generated systemd units

3. generation deployment of above long running containers with Quadlet

4. pods and more complicated setups on one machine with kube files

5. pods and more complicated setups across multiple machines with kubernetes

Which is a really nice stack to work with since they all use the same toolbox.

And that's outside of other small features like not having to worry about the docker package updating restarting the daemon and taking it all down, socket activation (through systemd units), and auto-updates.

[0] https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-generate-sy... [1] https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-systemd.uni...

rhatdan• 3 years ago

Do you run with Docker daemon running in rootless mode? Does rancher default to rootless mode? I hear Docker can run in rootless mode but does anyone really run it that way. If I want to start a single container in my homedir, I need to start up multiple docker daemons (dockerd, containerd) to run and then they run forever even if I run in daemon mode. Or I can shut them down until I need to interact with the container again.

Have you tried running with Pods? Have you tried Quadlet? Have you tried to generate kube yaml from running pods and containers on your system? Have you used podman to generate pods and containers from existing kubernetes yaml files? Have you launched containers each in their own User Namespace with --userns=auto?

andix• 3 years ago

Is it usable on windows now? I constantly had issues previously both with Podman desktop and also rancher desktop. Docker socket not reachable, something stuck, and needed to reset the installation constantly. Docker desktop works quote stable.

tempodox• 3 years ago

Just happened on macOS, with this new release:

Podman Desktop quit unexpectedly.

I was about to ask whether it works on macOS yet. I guess I've got my answer.

nightowl_games• 3 years ago

To all the people pointing out that docker compose doesn't scale, I use docker compose locally in a vs code dev container and then k8s on production. Running k8s locally seems too complex, maybe it's not so bad but I'm happy with using docker compose dev container for development

ducharmdev4• 3 years ago

To me, docker compose is simply a more readable way of running docker commands; anything you can do with the docker cli, you can run as a docker compose file.

Just like how a shell script is easier to manage than stringing lots of commands in the terminal, defining services in yaml is easier to manage than adding a million flags to your docker commands.

Of course at a certain point you may need further abstractions, but I agree with you that these should only be used if they're actually needed.

thiht• 3 years ago

I have no idea why anyone would want to run K8s locally. The concept makes absolutely no sense to me.

If you want to run a container, just run the container? K8s is here for scaling, not for running stuff in local.

vbezhenar7• 3 years ago

What if you need to run 20 services simultaneously? You would either need to maintain two sets of configuration for kubernetes and compose or use just one kubernetes configuration both for production/staging and local development.

ducharmdev4• 3 years ago

At work I was initially using podman on an M1 MacBook, but switched to Rancher Desktop + dockerd a couple months ago after having too many issues with podman. Many in my org are also moving away from podman for similar reasons.

I could never get bind mounts working consistently, relying instead on volumes, which are more awkward/less explicit when persisting local DBs used when testing.

I've had zero problems with Rancher Desktop + dockerd - definitely recommend it for M1 users that are having issues with podman.

kbenson• 3 years ago

I could never get bind mounts working consistently

What type of problems were you seeing? Was it with podman or through podman desktop, and possibly some issue with what it was attempting?

bind mounts are a pretty standard kernel feature, so I'm wondering how podman/podman desktop could have been screwing it up, unless it was some user level permissions thing.

ducharmdev4• 3 years ago

I wish I remembered the exact error; it was just with podman though. Podman desktop being newer, I hadn't really tried it out much.

FWIW, it could simply be chalked up to M1 weirdness. We have an ongoing list of various workarounds for the M1, whereas those using Intel MacBooks seem to be mostly fine.

hackandthink• 3 years ago

I'm not happy with Podman Desktop's Svelte GUI.

Antd or MUI (React) feel much more mature.

But they are working on it.

https://github.com/containers/podman-desktop/pull/2863

Podman Desktop 1.2 Released: Compose and Kubernetes Support

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