Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am learning more about Podman Quadlets for my homelab. Let\u2019s get started!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From my incomplete research going into this topic, I already know Quadlets is a system for efficiently integrating Podman containers in with Systemd. It was merged into Podman v4.4, and I had a small pain of a time trying to find a distribution with both that and legacy BIOS support along with a list of other requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what is Systemd? In short: Systemd is the init process \u2013a process that manages other processes\u2013 used by most Linux distributions that aren\u2019t trying to optimize for a low RAM or storage footprint. As it turns out, I\u2019ve already had minimal exposure to it while writing unit files for NFS [auto]mounts and a static IP address on Debian. Systemd in turn bases units off these unit files to manage the operating system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Systemd unit files defining Podman containers can be written by hand, Quadlets can automate their creation based off simpler unit files of its own: .container, .network, .volume, and .kube. The first three look similar enough to concepts I\u2019m familiar enough with that I figure I could hack an example into doing what I need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I\u2019m interested in pods. With .pod unit files only a controversial feature request at best, that leaves me to explore .kube files, which run Kubernetes YAML files. I know nothing about writing Kubernetes YAML files from scratch, and I refuse to cram for them Thanksgiving week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My project died here for a few hours. One Systemd tutorial brought up Syncthing in an example, and I spent a while on a tangent looking at that, but it too is too large to cram for this week. I unenthusiastically browsed back to Kubernetes, and found:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looks like I just might get away with adapting my scripts after all this week. With this in mind, I copied over my files from my laptop\u2019s Debian drive to its new-last-week Rocky 9 installation. Focusing on Nextcloud, I cleared out my dead-end work with Fuse, abstracted volumes, and other junk before realizing BusyBox was likely a more suitable testing grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I came up with the following bash script for such a pod:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
podman pod stop busyBoxPod
podman pod rm busyBoxPod
podman pod create busyBoxPod
podman create \\
--pod busyBoxPod \\
--name BusyBox \\
--volume fastvolume:\/root\/disk \\
-it \\
--rm \\
busybox<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nAnd here is<\/p>\n\n\n\n
# Save the output of this file and use kubectl create -f to import\n# it into Kubernetes.\n#\n# Created with podman-4.6.1\napiVersion: v1\nkind: Pod\nmetadata:\n creationTimestamp: \"2023-11-23T01:29:45Z\"\n labels:\n app: busyBoxPod\n name: busyBoxPod\nspec:\n containers:\n - image: docker.io\/library\/busybox:latest\n name: BusyBox\n stdin: true\n tty: true\n volumeMounts:\n - mountPath: \/root\/disk\n name: fastvolume-pvc\n volumes:\n - name: fastvolume-pvc\n persistentVolumeClaim:\n claimName: fastvolume<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nI saved this output as busyBoxPod.yml and returned to Nextcloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nextcloud put up a small tantrum getting re-updated for Podman 4.6.1. I had to look up how to Podman Secrets, and apply :z to volumes to satisfy SELinux. Redis however, refused to accept a password from Podman Secrets, so I rolled back that change. The pod should insulate it anyway. I got it to a point where it needed a domain name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Branching out to bring up Pi-Hole and Caddy, I learned how the default Unbound configuration for the container I used only forwards DNS requests to Cloudflare. I\u2019ll want to fix this later. I used firewall-cmd to forward ports for HTTP, HTTPS, and DNS to underprivileged ports for rootless containers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Takeaway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
UNCLE! I find more and more of my time supposedly working on server is procrastinating and stressing over either minutia or blankly staring at my screens when I muster enough focus to ignore distractions. There’s no way around it; I\u2019m officially burned out on this project. I\u2019ll maybe come back to it after the new year. I really wanted to get my .kube files working for at least Pi-Hole and Caddy, but it\u2019s going to be a hard pass at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Final Question<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m considering covering a free\/open source game or few over December. What are your recommendations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n