--blkio-weight=weight¶

Block IO relative weight. The weight is a value between 10 and 1000.

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

--blkio-weight-device=device:weight¶

Block IO relative device weight.

--cgroup-parent=path¶

Path to cgroups under which the cgroup for the pod 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.

--cpu-shares, -c=shares¶

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 combined weight of all the running containers. Default weight is 1024.

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 a fourth container is added 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 the container C0 is started with --cpu-shares=512 running one process, and another container C1 with --cpu-shares=1024 running two processes, this can result in the following division of CPU shares:

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

--cpus¶

Set a number of CPUs for the pod that overrides the original pods CPU limits. If none are specified, the original pod's Nano CPUs are used.

--cpuset-cpus=number¶

CPUs in which to allow execution. Can be specified as a comma-separated list (e.g. 0,1), as a range (e.g. 0-3), or any combination thereof (e.g. 0-3,7,11-15).

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

If none are specified, the original pod's CPUset is used.

--cpuset-mems=nodes¶

Memory nodes (MEMs) in which to allow execution (0-3, 0,1). Only effective on NUMA systems.

If there are four memory nodes on the system (0-3), use --cpuset-mems=0,1 then processes in the container will only use memory from the first two memory nodes.

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

--destroy¶

Remove the original pod that we are cloning once used to mimic the configuration.

--device=host-device[:container-device][:permissions]¶

Add a host device to the pod. Optional permissions parameter can be used to specify device permissions by combining r for read, w for write, and m for mknod(2).

Example: --device=/dev/sdc:/dev/xvdc:rwm.

Note: if host-device is a symbolic link then it will be resolved first. The pod will only store the major and minor numbers of the host device.

Podman may load kernel modules required for using the specified device. The devices that Podman will load modules for when necessary are: /dev/fuse.

In rootless mode, the new device is bind mounted in the container from the host rather than Podman creating it within the container space. Because the bind mount retains its SELinux label on SELinux systems, the container can get permission denied when accessing the mounted device. Modify SELinux settings to allow containers to use all device labels via the following command:

$ sudo setsebool -P container_use_devices=true

Note: the pod implements devices by storing the initial configuration passed by the user and recreating the device on each container added to the pod.

--device-read-bps=path:rate¶

Limit read rate (in bytes per second) from a device (e.g. --device-read-bps=/dev/sda:1mb).

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

--device-write-bps=path:rate¶

Limit write rate (in bytes per second) to a device (e.g. --device-write-bps=/dev/sda:1mb).

On some systems, changing the resource limits may not be allowed for non-root users. For more details, see https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/troubleshooting.md#26-running-containers-with-resource-limits-fails-with-a-permissions-error

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

--gidmap=pod_gid:host_gid:amount¶

GID map for the user namespace. Using this flag will run all containers in the pod with user namespace enabled. It conflicts with the --userns and --subgidname flags.

--help, -h¶

Print usage statement.

--hostname=name¶

Set a hostname to the pod.

--infra-command=command¶

The command that will be run to start the infra container. Default: "/pause".

--infra-conmon-pidfile=file¶

Write the pid of the infra container's conmon process to a file. As conmon runs in a separate process than Podman, this is necessary when using systemd to manage Podman containers and pods.

--infra-name=name¶

The name that will be used for the pod's infra container.

--label, -l=key=value¶

Add metadata to a pod.

--label-file=file¶

Read in a line-delimited file of labels.

--memory, -m=number[unit]¶

Memory limit. A unit can be b (bytes), k (kibibytes), m (mebibytes), or g (gibibytes).

Allows the memory available to a container to be constrained. 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).

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

--memory-swap=number[unit]¶

A limit value equal to memory plus swap. A unit can be b (bytes), k (kibibytes), m (mebibytes), or g (gibibytes).

Must be used with the -m (--memory) flag. The argument value should always be larger than that of
-m (--memory) By default, it is set to double the value of --memory.

Set number to -1 to enable unlimited swap.

This option is not supported on cgroups V1 rootless systems.

--name, -n¶

Set a custom name for the cloned pod. The default if not specified is of the syntax: -clone

--pid=pid¶

Set the PID mode for the pod. The default is to create a private PID namespace for the pod. Requires the PID namespace to be shared via --share.

host: use the host’s PID namespace for the pod
ns: join the specified PID namespace
private: create a new namespace for the pod (default)

--security-opt=option¶

Security Options

Note: Labeling can be disabled for all pods/containers by setting label=false in the containers.conf (/etc/containers/containers.conf or $HOME/.config/containers/containers.conf) file.

Note: Labeling can be disabled for all containers by setting label=false in the containers.conf (/etc/containers/containers.conf or $HOME/.config/containers/containers.conf) file.

--shm-size=number[unit]¶

Size of /dev/shm. A unit can be b (bytes), k (kibibytes), m (mebibytes), or g (gibibytes). If the unit is omitted, the system uses bytes. If the size is omitted, the default is 64m. When size is 0, there is no limit on the amount of memory used for IPC by the pod. This option conflicts with --ipc=host.

--start¶

When set to true, this flag starts the newly created pod after the clone process has completed. All containers within the pod are started.

--subgidname=name¶

Run the container in a new user namespace using the map with name in the /etc/subgid file. If running rootless, the user needs to have the right to use the mapping. See subgid(5). This flag conflicts with --userns and --gidmap.

--subuidname=name¶

Run the container in a new user namespace using the map with name in the /etc/subuid file. If running rootless, the user needs to have the right to use the mapping. See subuid(5). This flag conflicts with --userns and --uidmap.

--sysctl=name=value¶

Configure namespaced kernel parameters for all containers in the pod.

For the IPC namespace, the following sysctls are allowed:

Note: if the ipc namespace is not shared within the pod, the above sysctls are not allowed.

For the network namespace, only sysctls beginning with net.* are allowed.

Note: if the network namespace is not shared within the pod, the above sysctls are not allowed.

--uidmap=container_uid:from_uid:amount¶

Run all containers in the pod in a new user namespace using the supplied mapping. This option conflicts with the --userns and --subuidname options. This option provides a way to map host UIDs to container UIDs. It can be passed several times to map different ranges.

--userns=mode¶

Set the user namespace mode for all the containers in a pod. It defaults to the PODMAN_USERNS environment variable. An empty value ("") means user namespaces are disabled.

Rootless user --userns=Key mappings:

Valid mode values are:

--uts=mode¶

Set the UTS namespace mode for the pod. The following values are supported:

--volume, -v=[[SOURCE-VOLUME|HOST-DIR:]CONTAINER-DIR[:OPTIONS]]¶

Create a bind mount. If -v /HOST-DIR:/CONTAINER-DIR is specified, Podman bind mounts /HOST-DIR from the host into /CONTAINER-DIR in the Podman container. Similarly, -v SOURCE-VOLUME:/CONTAINER-DIR will mount the named volume from the host into the container. If no such named volume exists, Podman will create one. If no source is given, the volume will be created as an anonymously named volume with a randomly generated name, and will be removed when the pod is removed via the --rm flag or the podman rm --volumes command.

(Note when using the remote client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines, the volumes will be mounted from the remote server, not necessarily the client machine.)

The OPTIONS is a comma-separated list and can be: [1] ⟨#Footnote1⟩

The CONTAINER-DIR must be an absolute path such as /src/docs. The volume will be mounted into the container at this directory.

If a volume source is specified, it must be a path on the host or the name of a named volume. Host paths are allowed to be absolute or relative; relative paths are resolved relative to the directory Podman is run in. If the source does not exist, Podman will return an error. Users must pre-create the source files or directories.

Any source that does not begin with a . or / will be treated as the name of a named volume. If a volume with that name does not exist, it will be created. Volumes created with names are not anonymous, and they are not removed by the --rm option and the podman rm --volumes command.

Specify multiple -v options to mount one or more volumes into a pod.

Write Protected Volume Mounts

Add :ro or :rw option to mount a volume in read-only or read-write mode, respectively. By default, the volumes are mounted read-write. See examples.

Chowning Volume Mounts

By default, Podman does not change the owner and group of source volume directories mounted into containers. If a pod is created in a new user namespace, the UID and GID in the container may correspond to another UID and GID on the host.

The :U suffix tells Podman to use the correct host UID and GID based on the UID and GID within the pod, to change recursively the owner and group of the source volume.

Warning use with caution since this will modify the host filesystem.

Labeling Volume Mounts

Labeling systems like SELinux require that proper labels are placed on volume content mounted into a pod. Without a label, the security system might prevent the processes running inside the pod from using the content. By default, Podman does not change the labels set by the OS.

To change a label in the pod context, 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 pods 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 pod can use a private volume.

Note: Do not relabel system files and directories. Relabeling system content might cause other confined services on your machine to fail. For these types of containers we recommend disabling SELinux separation. The option --security-opt label=disable disables SELinux separation for the pod. For example if a user wanted to volume mount their entire home directory into a pod, they need to disable SELinux separation.

   $ podman pod clone --security-opt label=disable -v $HOME:/home/user fedora touch /home/user/file

Overlay Volume Mounts

The :O flag tells Podman to mount the directory from the host as a temporary storage using the overlay file system. The pod processes can modify content within the mountpoint which is stored in the container storage in a separate directory. In overlay terms, the source directory will be the lower, and the container storage directory will be the upper. Modifications to the mount point are destroyed when the pod finishes executing, similar to a tmpfs mount point being unmounted.

For advanced users, the overlay option also supports custom non-volatile upperdir and workdir for the overlay mount. Custom upperdir and workdir can be fully managed by the users themselves, and Podman will not remove it on lifecycle completion. Example :O,upperdir=/some/upper,workdir=/some/work

Subsequent executions of the container will see the original source directory content, any changes from previous pod executions no longer exist.

One use case of the overlay mount is sharing the package cache from the host into the container to allow speeding up builds.

Note:

 - The `O` flag conflicts with other options listed above.

Content mounted into the container is labeled with the private label.
On SELinux systems, labels in the source directory must be readable by the pod infra container label. Usually containers can read/execute container_share_t and can read/write container_file_t. If unable to change the labels on a source volume, SELinux container separation must be disabled for the pod or infra container to work.
- The source directory mounted into the pod with an overlay mount should not be modified, it can cause unexpected failures. It is recommended to not modify the directory until the container finishes running.

Mounts propagation

By default bind mounted volumes are private. That means any mounts done inside the pod will not be visible on host and vice versa. One can change this behavior by specifying a volume mount propagation property. Making a volume shared mounts done under that volume inside the pod will be visible on host and vice 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. [1] ⟨#Footnote1⟩

To control mount propagation property of a volume one can use the [r]shared, [r]slave, [r]private or the [r]unbindable 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 the source mount point (the mount point where source dir is mounted on) has to have the right propagation properties. For shared volumes, the source mount point has to be shared. And for slave volumes, the source mount point has to be either shared or slave. [1] ⟨#Footnote1⟩

To recursively mount a volume and all of its submounts into a pod, use the rbind option. By default the bind option is used, and submounts of the source directory will not be mounted into the pod.

Mounting the volume with the nosuid options means that SUID applications on the volume will not be able to change their privilege. By default volumes are mounted with nosuid.

Mounting the volume with the noexec option means that no executables on the volume will be able to be executed within the pod.

Mounting the volume with the nodev option means that no devices on the volume will be able to be used by processes within the pod. By default volumes are mounted with nodev.

If the HOST-DIR is a mount point, then dev, suid, and exec options are ignored by the kernel.

Use df HOST-DIR to figure out the source mount, then use findmnt -o TARGET,PROPAGATION source-mount-dir to figure out propagation properties of source mount. If findmnt(1) utility is not available, then one can look at the mount entry for the source mount point in /proc/self/mountinfo. Look at the "optional fields" and see if any propagation properties are specified. In there, shared:N means the mount is shared, master:N means mount is slave, and if nothing is there, the mount is private. [1] ⟨#Footnote1⟩

To change propagation properties of a mount point, use mount(8) 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.

Note: if the user only has access rights via a group, accessing the volume from inside a rootless pod will fail.

--volumes-from=CONTAINER[:OPTIONS]¶

Mount volumes from the specified container(s). Used to share volumes between containers and pods. The options is a comma-separated list with the following available elements:

Mounts already mounted volumes from a source container onto another pod. CONTAINER may be a name or ID. To share a volume, use the --volumes-from option when running the target container. Volumes can be shared even if the source container is not running.

By default, Podman mounts the volumes in the same mode (read-write or read-only) as it is mounted in the source container. This can be changed by adding a ro or rw option.

Labeling systems like SELinux require that proper labels are placed on volume content mounted into a pod. 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 pod context, add z to the volume mount. This suffix tells Podman to relabel file objects on the shared volumes. The z option tells Podman that two entities 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.

If the location of the volume from the source container overlaps with data residing on a target pod, then the volume hides that data on the target.