Chapter 4. Working with container images The Podman tool is designed to work with container images. You can use this tool to pull the image, inspect, tag, save, load, redistribute, and define the image signature. 4.1. Pulling container images using short-name aliases You can use secure short names to get the image to your local system. The following procedure describes how to pull a fedora or nginx container image. Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. Procedure Pull the container image: Pull the fedora image: Alias is found and the registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora image is securely pulled. The unqualified-search-registries list is not used to resolve fedora image name. Pull the nginx image: If no matching alias is found, you are prompted to choose one of the unqualified-search-registries list. If the selected image is pulled successfully, a new short-name alias is recorded locally, otherwise an error occurs. Verification List all images pulled to your local system: Additional resources Container image short names in Podman 4.2. Listing images Use the podman images command to list images in your local storage. Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. A pulled image is available on the local system. Procedure List all images in the local storage: Additional resources podman-images man page on your system 4.3. Inspecting local images After you pull an image to your local system and run it, you can use the podman inspect command to investigate the image. For example, use it to understand what the image does and check what software is inside the image. The podman inspect command displays information about containers and images identified by name or ID. Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. A pulled image is available on the local system. Procedure Inspect the registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi image: The "Cmd" key specifies a default command to run within a container. You can override this command by specifying a command as an argument to the podman run command. This ubi9/ubi container will execute the bash shell if no other argument is given when you start it with podman run . If an "Entrypoint" key was set, its value would be used instead of the "Cmd" value, and the value of "Cmd" is used as an argument to the Entrypoint command. Additional resources podman-inspect man page on your system 4.4. Inspecting remote images Use the skopeo inspect command to display information about an image from a remote container registry before you pull the image to your system. Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. Procedure The container-tools meta-package is installed. Inspect the registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi-init image: Additional resources skopeo-inspect man page on your system 4.5. Copying container images You can use the skopeo copy command to copy a container image from one registry to another. For example, you can populate an internal repository with images from external registries, or sync image registries in two different locations. Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. Procedure Copy the skopeo container image from docker://quay.io to docker://registry.example.com : Additional resources skopeo-copy man page on your system 4.6. Copying image layers to a local directory You can use the skopeo copy command to copy the layers of a container image to a local directory. Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. Procedure Create the /var/lib/images/nginx directory: Copy the layers of the docker://docker.io/nginx:latest image to the newly created directory: Verification Display the content of the /var/lib/images/nginx directory: Additional resources skopeo-copy man page on your system 4.7. Tagging images Use the podman tag command to add an additional name to a local image. This additional name can consist of several parts: <registryhost>/<username>/<name>:<tag> . Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. A pulled image is available on the local system. Procedure List all images: Assign the myubi name to the registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi image using one of the following options: The image name: The image ID: Both commands give you the same result. List all images: Notice that the default tag is latest for both images. You can see all the image names are assigned to the single image ID 3269c37eae33. Add the 9 tag to the registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi image using either: The image name: The image ID: Both commands give you the same result. List all images: Notice that the default tag is latest for both images. You can see all the image names are assigned to the single image ID 3269c37eae33. After tagging the registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi image, you have three options to run the container: by ID ( 3269c37eae33 ) by name ( localhost/myubi:latest ) by name ( localhost/myubi:9 ) Additional resources podman-tag man page on your system 4.8. Building multi-architecture images You can use the podman build --platform command to create multi-architecture container images. Container images are typically built for specific architectures like x86 or ARM. As hardware diversity and cloud platforms expanded, multi-architecture support became essential, enabling deployment of the same image across different architectures. Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. Procedure Create Containerfiles for each architecture you want to support. Build images for each architecture. For example: The --platform linux/arm64,linux/amd64 option specifies the target platforms for which the container image is being built. The --manifest <registry>/<image> option creates a manifest list with the specified name, that is <registry>/<image> , and adds the newly-built images to them. A manifest list is a collection of image manifests, each one targeting a different architecture. Push the manifest list to the registry: This manifest list acts as a single entry point for pulling the multi-architecture container. As a result, you can pull the appropriate container image for your platform, based on a single manifest list. You can also remove items from the manifest list by using the podman manifest remove <manifest_list> <digest_ID> command, where <digest_ID> is the SHA-256 checksum of the container image. For example: podman manifest remove <registry>/<image> sha256:cb8a924afdf... . Verification Display the manifest list: Additional resources podman-build(1) man page podman-manifest(1) man page How to build multi-architecture container images article 4.9. Saving and loading images Use the podman save command to save an image to a container archive. You can restore it later to another container environment or send it to someone else. You can use --format option to specify the archive format. The supported formats are: docker-archive oci-archive oci-dir (directory with oci manifest type) docker-dir (directory with v2s2 manifest type) The default format is the docker-dir format. Use the podman load command to load an image from the container image archive into the container storage. Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. A pulled image is available on the local system. Procedure Save the registry.redhat.io/rhel9/rsyslog image as a tarball: In the default docker-dir format: In the oci-archive format, using the --format option: The myrsyslog.tar and myrsyslog-oci.tar archives are stored in your current directory. The steps are performed with the myrsyslog.tar tarball. Check the file type of myrsyslog.tar : To load the registry.redhat.io/rhel9/rsyslog:latest image from the myrsyslog.tar : Additional resources podman-save man page on your system 4.10. Redistributing UBI images Use podman push command to push a UBI image to your own, or a third party, registry and share it with others. You can upgrade or add to that image from UBI dnf repositories as you like. Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. A pulled image is available on the local system. Procedure Optional: Add an additional name to the ubi image: Push the registry.example.com:5000/ubi9/ubi image from your local storage to a registry: Important While there are few restrictions on how you use these images, there are some restrictions about how you can refer to them. For example, you cannot call those images Red Hat certified or Red Hat supported unless you certify it through the Red Hat Partner Connect Program , either with Red Hat Container Certification or Red Hat OpenShift Operator Certification. 4.11. Removing images Use the podman rmi command to remove locally stored container images. You can remove an image by its ID or name. Prerequisites The container-tools meta-package is installed. Procedure List all images on your local system: List all containers: To remove the registry.redhat.io/rhel8/rsyslog image, you have to stop all containers running from this image using the podman stop command. You can stop a container by its ID or name. Stop the mysyslog container: Remove the registry.redhat.io/rhel8/rsyslog image: To remove multiple images: To remove all images from your system: To remove images that have multiple names (tags) associated with them, add the -f option to remove them: Additional resources podman-rmi man page on your system

Commands:
podman pull fedora Resolved "fedora" as an alias (/etc/containers/registries.conf.d/000-shortnames.conf) Trying to pull registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora:latest... Storing signatures
podman pull nginx ? Please select an image: registry.access.redhat.com/nginx:latest registry.redhat.io/nginx:latest ▸ docker.io/library/nginx:latest ✔ docker.io/library/nginx:latest Trying to pull docker.io/library/nginx:latest... Storing signatures
podman images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora latest 28317703decd 12 days ago 184 MB docker.io/library/nginx latest 08b152afcfae 13 days ago 137 MB
podman images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE registry.access.redhat.com/ubi9/ubi latest 3269c37eae33 6 weeks ago 208 MB
podman inspect registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi ... "Cmd": [ "/bin/bash" ], "Labels": { "architecture": "x86_64", "build-date": "2020-12-10T01:59:40.343735", "com.redhat.build-host": "cpt-1002.osbs.prod.upshift.rdu2.redhat.com", "com.redhat.component": "ubi9-container", "com.redhat.license_terms": "https://www.redhat.com/..., "description": "The Universal Base Image is }
skopeo inspect docker://registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi-init { "Name": "registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi9-init", "Digest": "sha256:c6d1e50ab...", "RepoTags": [ "latest" ], "Created": "2020-12-10T07:16:37.250312Z", "DockerVersion": "1.13.1", "Labels": { "architecture": "x86_64", "build-date": "2020-12-10T07:16:11.378348", "com.redhat.build-host": "cpt-1007.osbs.prod.upshift.rdu2.redhat.com", "com.redhat.component": "ubi9-init-container", "com.redhat.license_terms": "https://www.redhat.com/en/about/red-hat-end-user-license-agreements#UBI", "description": "The Universal Base Image Init is designed to run an init system as PID 1 for running multi-services inside a container } }
skopeo copy docker://quay.io/skopeo/stable:latest docker://registry.example.com/skopeo:latest
mkdir -p /var/lib/images/nginx
skopeo copy docker://docker.io/nginx:latest dir:/var/lib/images/nginx
ls /var/lib/images/nginx 08b11a3d692c1a2e15ae840f2c15c18308dcb079aa5320e15d46b62015c0f6f3 4fcb23e29ba19bf305d0d4b35412625fea51e82292ec7312f9be724cb6e31ffd manifest.json version
podman images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi latest 3269c37eae33 7 weeks ago 208 MB
podman tag registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi myubi
podman tag 3269c37eae33 myubi
podman images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi latest 3269c37eae33 2 months ago 208 MB localhost/myubi latest 3269c37eae33 2 months ago 208 MB
podman tag registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi myubi:9
podman tag 3269c37eae33 myubi:9
podman images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi latest 3269c37eae33 2 months ago 208 MB localhost/myubi latest 3269c37eae33 2 months ago 208 MB localhost/myubi 9 3269c37eae33 2 months ago 208 MB
podman build --platform linux/arm64,linux/amd64 --manifest <registry> / <image> .
podman manifest push <registry> / <image>
podman manifest inspect <registry>/<image>
podman save -o myrsyslog.tar registry.redhat.io/rhel9/rsyslog:latest
podman save -o myrsyslog-oci.tar --format=oci-archive registry.redhat.io/rhel9/rsyslog
file myrsyslog.tar myrsyslog.tar: POSIX tar archive
podman load -i myrsyslog.tar Loaded image(s): registry.redhat.io/rhel9/rsyslog:latest
podman tag registry.redhat.io/ubi9/ubi registry.example.com:5000/ubi9/ubi
podman push registry.example.com:5000/ubi9/ubi
podman images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE registry.redhat.io/rhel8/rsyslog latest 4b32d14201de 7 weeks ago 228 MB registry.redhat.io/ubi8/ubi latest 3269c37eae33 7 weeks ago 208 MB localhost/myubi X.Y 3269c37eae33 7 weeks ago 208 MB
podman ps -a CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 7ccd6001166e registry.redhat.io/rhel8/rsyslog:latest /bin/rsyslog.sh 6 seconds ago Up 5 seconds ago mysyslog
podman stop mysyslog 7ccd6001166e9720c47fbeb077e0afd0bb635e74a1b0ede3fd34d09eaf5a52e9
podman rmi registry.redhat.io/rhel8/rsyslog
podman rmi registry.redhat.io/rhel8/rsyslog registry.redhat.io/ubi8/ubi
podman rmi -a
podman rmi -f 1de7d7b3f531 1de7d7b3f531