podman VS Portainer

Podman - Alternative container runtime

Install Podman. Find the latest Podman release on the GitHub Release page, and download the binary for your system architecture. At the time of writing, the latest release was v5.4.1. Install either the unversal pkg installer or the arm or amd version.

Neat. I like to see other takes on this. Any reason to use rootless vs `userns=auto`? I haven't really seen any discussion of it other than this issue: https://github.com/containers/podman/discussions/13728

5. Podman — The Rootless Docker Alternative

Podman (aka: “We have Docker at home”) Docker CLI compatibility. Rootless. No daemon. No drama.

Since a few years now, we started to design various cli for internal batch usage, on our Java Stack on top of picocli and quarkus, delivered as images, and run on podman.

Podman quadlet supports "Socket activation of containers" https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/docs/tutorial...

This file was originally from github repo, but with static podman build it is not present.

Docker or Podman for container runtime

I've been looking for a better solution for local dev on services deployed via quadlet, could you elaborate on this?

I just took a look at the socket activation docs[0]. Is my understanding correct that no `compose.yaml` is required, just running `docker-compose up` with the appropriate env var pointing to the socket is enough to trigger a connection and service activation?

[0] https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/docs/tutorial...

Since I'm not using Kubernetes/K3S to manage the orchestration, I simply use Docker Compose files, which I manage in folders and track with Git. Secrets and credentials are stored securely using .env files — nothing is hardcoded. For maintenance, I use Portainer. The whole Docker management and Ubuntu itself run on the internal SSD for the fastest speed possible, ensuring no other services interfere.

Portainer

Portainer container management UI

I've been a self-hoster for a while. The adventure started with regular mani-pc manufactured by HP. 32G of RAM, Intel gen 10, and 1T HDD drive. However, as long as it was a great experience at the beginning, with time it became a challenge. My stack was built with portainer and a bunch of docker-compose files. It leads to specific issues: with portainer, you don't own the Compose files, they are living inside your tool, but nowhere on the filesystem or git repo.

As an open-source tool, Portainer makes it easier to deploy, monitor, and secure systems using Docker, Kubernetes, Swarm, and Podman. Everyone can use it, from small companies to big enterprises, by offering user-friendly interface automation, and developer self-service.

I'm running this setup on a mini pc running Intel N100(4core, 6w TDP) with 16G ram using portainer to setup the relevant containers. You can directly do this via docker as well.

We see that both of our containers are working and no restarting issues. So all looks good at first glance. Now we can move to the next step. We could now deploy NTFY container, but I would like to deploy a Portainer. Why?

It's crucial to have an effective access management system that allows you to robustly manage user identities and permissions across your clusters. Although Kubernetes includes an advanced RBAC implementation, this only works within a single cluster. A dedicated Kubernetes management platform such as Rancher or Portainer is required to cohesively configure identities and grant users the multi-cluster access they require.

Check it out https://www.portainer.io/

Portainer is a container management platform that provides a powerful web interface to administer your workloads. It natively supports Kubernetes environments to help you manage your Pods, Deployments, Helm charts, and other cluster resources. Portainer also provides robust RBAC capabilities and an external authentication layer, letting you grant team members access to Kubernetes through Portainer without directly exposing your cluster.