How to Install Podman on Ubuntu 24.04

Updated on August 26, 2024

Introduction

Podman is an open-source container management tool that lets you develop, manage, and run Open Container Initiative (OCI) containers without a background daemon process. Podman enhances the security of containerized applications and reduces resource usage due to its daemonless design.

This article explains how to install Podman on Ubuntu 24.04 and perform essential container operations to manage containerized applications.

Prerequisites

Before you begin:

Deploy a Ubuntu 24.04 instance on Vultr.
Create a Vultr Container Registry to store your Podman container images.
Access the server using SSH as a non-root user with sudo privileges.
Update the server.

Install Podman

Podman is available in the default package repositories on Ubuntu 24.04. Follow the steps below to install Podman using the APT package manager on your server.

Update the server's package index.
console
```
$ sudo apt update
```
Install Podman.
console
```
$ sudo apt install podman -y
```
View the installed Podman version on your server.
console
```
$ sudo podman --version
```
Your output should be similar to the one below.
```
podman version 4.9.3
```

Manage the Podman System Service

Podman uses two system services for managing containers, podman CLI and podman.socket. podman is the command-line interface that enables direct interaction with Podman, enabling users to manage resources such as containers, images, and pods. podman.socket is a systemd socket file that provides remote API access to Podman, which is useful for remote management and integration with container development tools. You can use podman.socket to run Podman as a system service. Follow the steps below to manage the Podman system service and enable the application to run on your server.

Enable the Podman service to automatically start at system boot.
console
```
$ sudo systemctl enable podman.socket
```
Start the Podman service.
console
```
$ sudo systemctl start podman.socket
```
Stop the Podman service.
console
```
$ sudo systemctl stop podman.socket
```
Restart the Podman service.
console
```
$ sudo systemctl restart podman.socket
```

View the Podman service status and verify that it's running.

                            console
                            
$ sudo systemctl status podman.socket

Output:

● podman.socket - Podman API Socket
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/podman.socket; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (listening) since Mon 2024-08-26 12:07:01 UTC; 37s ago
   Triggers: ● podman.service
       Docs: man:podman-system-service(1)
     Listen: /run/podman/podman.sock (Stream)
     CGroup: /system.slice/podman.socket

Deploy Containerized Applications using Podman

Podman uses a variety of image sources to find and pull container image using registries in the /etc/containers/registries.conf file. Follow the steps below to deploy an HTTP server application based on the Nginx container image from Docker Hub.

Pull the Nginx container image from Docker Hub.

                            console
                            
$ sudo podman pull docker.io/nginx:alpine

Output:

Trying to pull docker.io/library/nginx:alpine...
//...
Writing manifest to image destination
1ae23480369fa4139f6dec668d7a5a941b56ea174e9cf75e09771988fe621c95

List all container images available on the server.

                            console
                            
$ sudo podman images

Verify that the Nginx container image is available in your output.

REPOSITORY               TAG         IMAGE ID      CREATED      SIZE
docker.io/library/nginx  alpine      1ae23480369f  6 weeks ago  45.1 MB

Run a new containerized application using the Nginx image.

                            console
                            
$ sudo podman run -d --name nginx-server -p 9090:80 docker.io/nginx:alpine

List all running Podman container processes.

                            console
                            
$ sudo podman ps

Output:

CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                           COMMAND               CREATED        STATUS        PORTS                 NAMES
20628c4b7d0f  docker.io/library/nginx:alpine  nginx -g daemon o...  4 seconds ago  Up 4 seconds  0.0.0.0:9090->80/tcp  nginx-server

Test access to the container using the host port 9090.

console

$ curl http://localhost:9090

Output:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to nginx!</title>
//.....

Log in to Vultr Container Registry

Podman supports custom registries such as the Vultr Container Registry to build and store container images. Follow the steps below to create a Python application using FastAPI, build a new application image and push the containerized application image to your Vultr Container Registry.

Access your Vultr Container Registry's management panel to view the registry's username and API key credentials.

Create a new environment variable to store your Vultr Container Registry name.

                            console
                            
$ export VULTR_CONTAINER_REGISTRY_NAME=<enter the Vultr Container Registry name>

Create another environment variable to store the registry username.

                            console
                            
$ export VULTR_CONTAINER_REGISTRY_USERNAME=<enter the Vultr Container Registry username>

Create a environment variable to store the registry's API key.

                            console
                            
$ export VULTR_CONTAINER_REGISTRY_API_KEY=<enter the Vultr Container Registry API key>

                            console
                            
$ sudo podman login https://sjc.vultrcr.com/$VULTR_CONTAINER_REGISTRY_NAME -u $VULTR_CONTAINER_REGISTRY_USERNAME -p $VULTR_CONTAINER_REGISTRY_API_KEY

Output:

Login Succeeded

Create a new Python application file app.py.
console
```
$ sudo nano app.py
```

Add the following contents to the file.

                            python
                            
                        
from fastapi import FastAPI, Response
import uvicorn

app = FastAPI()

@app.get("/")
def hello():
    return Response(content="Hello from Vultr", media_type="text/plain")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    uvicorn.run(app, host="0.0.0.0", port=5000)

Save and close the file.

The above FastAPI application initializes a new web server on port 5000 that displays a Hello from Vultr message when accessed.

Create a new Dockerfile configuration.
console
```
$ sudo nano Dockerfile
```
Add the following contents to the file.
dockerfile
```
FROM python:3.12-slim
WORKDIR /app
COPY . /app
RUN pip install fastapi uvicorn
EXPOSE 5000
CMD ["python", "app.py"]
```
Save and close the file.

The above Dockerfile sets up a Python 3.12 environment, installs fastapi and uvicorn, and starts a web server on port 5000 using the Python application file app.py.

Build the container image with all files in your working directory.

                            console
                            
$ sudo podman build -t python-fastapi-app .

Output:

//...
Successfully tagged localhost/python-fastapi-app:latest
8f00b7a023da93ce714c41ab817be66913385f8c8583b4c38e59a35e53af0037

Tag the container image with your Vultr Container Registry's name.

                            console
                            
$ sudo podman tag python-fastapi-app sjc.vultrcr.com/$VULTR_CONTAINER_REGISTRY_NAME/python-fastapi-app:v1

List all container images on your server and verify that the tagged image is available.

                            console
                            
$ sudo podman images

Output:

REPOSITORY                               TAG         IMAGE ID      CREATED         SIZE
sjc.vultrcr.com/demo/python-fastapi-app  v1          8f00b7a023da  30 seconds ago  217 MB
localhost/python-fastapi-app             latest      8f00b7a023da  30 seconds ago  217 MB
docker.io/library/nginx                  alpine      1ae23480369f  6 weeks ago     45.1 MB
docker.io/library/python                 3.12-slim   8d6f9eba56c9  11 days ago     135 MB

Push the image to your Vultr Container Registry.

                            console
                            
$ sudo podman push sjc.vultrcr.com/$VULTR_CONTAINER_REGISTRY_NAME/python-fastapi-app:v1

Output:

//...
Writing manifest to image destination

Deploy a new containerized application using your Vultr Container Registry image.

                            console
                            
$ sudo podman run -d --name demo-app -p 5000:5000 sjc.vultrcr.com/$VULTR_CONTAINER_REGISTRY_NAME/python-fastapi-app:v1

Test access to the application using Curl on the host port 5000.
console
```
$ curl http://localhost:5000
```
Output:
```
Hello from Vultr
```

Conclusion

You have installed Podman on an Ubuntu 24.04 server and deployed containerized applications. Podman enables you to build, store, and run containerized applications on your server. For more information and configuration options, please visit the Podman documentation.

How to Install Podman on Ubuntu 24.04

Introduction

Prerequisites

Install Podman

Manage the Podman System Service

Deploy Containerized Applications using Podman

Log in to Vultr Container Registry

Conclusion

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Features

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