1podman-machine-init(1) General Commands Manual podman-machine-init(1)
2
6 podman-machine-init - Initialize a new virtual machine
7
10 podman machine init [options] [name]
11
14 Initialize a new virtual machine for Podman.
15 Rootless only.
18 Podman on MacOS and Windows requires a virtual machine. This is because
21 containers are Linux - containers do not run on any other OS because
22 containers' core functionality are tied to the Linux kernel. Podman ma‐
23 chine must be used to manage MacOS and Windows machines, but can be op‐
24 tionally used on Linux.
25 podman machine init initializes a new Linux virtual machine where con‐
28 tainers are run. SSH keys are automatically generated to access the
29 VM, and system connections to the root account and a user account in‐
30 side the VM are added.
31 By default, the VM distribution is Fedora CoreOS. Fedora CoreOS up‐
34 grades come out every 14 days and are detected and installed automati‐
35 cally. The VM will be rebooted during the upgrade. For more informa‐
36 tion on updates and advanced configuration, please see the FCOS update
37 docs here and here.
38
41 --cpus=number
42 Number of CPUs.
43 --disk-size=number
46 Size of the disk for the guest VM in GB.
47 --help
50 Print usage statement.
51 --ignition-path
54 Fully qualified path of the ignition file.
55 If an ignition file is provided, the file will be copied into the
58 user's CONF_DIR and renamed. Additionally, no SSH keys will be gener‐
59 ated nor will a system connection be made. It is assumed that the user
60 will do these things manually or handle otherwise.
61 --image-path
64 Fully qualified path or URL to the VM image. Can also be set to test‐
65 ing, next, or stable to pull down default image. Defaults to testing.
66 --memory, -m=number
69 Memory (in MB).
70 --now
73 Start the virtual machine immediately after it has been initialized.
74 --rootful
77 Whether this machine should prefer rootful (true) or rootless (false)
78 container execution. This option will also determine the remote connec‐
79 tion default if there is no existing remote connection configurations.
80 API forwarding, if available, will follow this setting.
83 --timezone
86 Set the timezone for the machine and containers. Valid values are lo‐
87 cal or a timezone such as America/Chicago. A value of local, which is
88 the default, means to use the timezone of the machine host.
89 --username
92 Username to use for executing commands in remote VM. Default value is
93 core for FCOS and user for Fedora (default on Windows hosts). Should
94 match the one used inside the resulting VM image.
95 --volume, -v=source:target[:options]
98 Mounts a volume from source to target.
99 Create a mount. If /host-dir:/machine-dir is specified as the
102 *source:target*, Podman mounts host-dir in the host to machine-dir in
103 the Podman machine.
104 Additional options may be specified as a comma-separated string. Recog‐
107 nized options are: * ro: mount volume read-only * rw: mount volume
108 read/write (default) * security_model=[model]: specify 9p security
109 model (see below)
110 The 9p security model [determines] https://wiki.qemu.org/Documenta‐
113 tion/9psetup#Starting_the_Guest_directly if and how the 9p filesystem
114 translates some filesystem operations before actual storage on the
115 host. The default value of mapped-xattr specifies that 9p store sym‐
116 links and some file attributes as extended attributes on the host. This
117 is suitable when the host and the guest do not need to interoperate on
118 the shared filesystem, but has caveats for actual shared access; no‐
119 tably, symlinks on the host are not usable on the guest and vice versa.
120 If interoperability is required, then choose none instead, but keep in
121 mind that the guest will not be able to do things that the user running
122 the virtual machine cannot do, e.g. create files owned by another user.
123 Using none is almost certainly the best choice for read-only volumes.
124 Example: -v "$HOME/git:$HOME/git:ro,security_model=none"
127 Default volume mounts are defined in containers.conf. Unless changed,
130 the default values is $HOME:$HOME.
131 --volume-driver
134 Driver to use for mounting volumes from the host, such as virtfs.
135
138 $ podman machine init
139 $ podman machine init myvm
140 $ podman machine init --rootful
141 $ podman machine init --disk-size 50
142 $ podman machine init --memory=1024 myvm
143 $ podman machine init -v /Users:/mnt/Users
144
148 podman(1), podman-machine(1)
149
152 March 2021, Originally compiled by Ashley Cui acui@redhat.com
153 ⟨mailto:acui@redhat.com⟩
154 podman-machine-init(1)