Preface

Quick start

1. Log in to the host as root.
2. Run bash <(wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oneclickvirt/podman/main/podmaninstall.sh).
3. Download onepodman.sh as shown in the creation guide, then run ./onepodman.sh ct1 1 512 MyPassword 25000 34975 35000 n debian 0.
4. Connect with ssh root@<host-IP> -p 25000.
5. Read ctlog or run podman ps -a to inspect the result.

Single Container Provisioning

Download Script

wget -q https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oneclickvirt/podman/main/scripts/onepodman.sh
chmod +x onepodman.sh

Usage

Pass an empty password string to generate one while supplying later arguments.
./onepodman.sh <name> <cpu> <memory_mb> <password> <sshport> <startport> <endport> [ipv6:y/n] [system] [disk_gb]

Argument	Description	Default
name	Container name	test
cpu	CPU limit; fractional values such as 0.5 are supported	1
memory_mb	Memory limit in MB	512
password	Root password; omitted or empty values generate a password	generated
sshport	Host port forwarded to container port 22	25000
startport	First additional public port	34975
endport	Last additional public port	35000
ipv6	Request independent IPv6, y or n	n
system	Guest image family	debian
disk_gb	btrfs qgroup disk limit in GB; 0 disables the limit	0

The SSH host port must not overlap the additional public port range.

With btrfs and disk_gb greater than zero, the script creates the container, applies a qgroup limit to its rootfs, and then starts it. Podman's --storage-opt configures global storage; this project therefore does not pass size=... to podman run as a per-container disk limit.

Supported system values are ubuntu, debian, alpine, almalinux, rockylinux and openeuler. Maintained version aliases are normalized to the actual image tag:

• ubuntu22, ubuntu/22.04 → ubuntu
• debian12, debian/12 → debian
• alma9, almalinux/9 → almalinux
• rocky9, rockylinux/9 → rockylinux
• openeuler22.03, openeuler/22.03 → openeuler

Unsupported versions do not silently fall back to another release.

Example

./onepodman.sh ct1 1 512 MyPassword 25000 34975 35000 n debian 0

Related Operations

podman ps -a
podman exec -it <name> bash
podman exec -it <name> sh   # Alpine
podman logs <name>
podman rm -f <name>
podman images
podman rmi <image>

Batch Container Provisioning

Run

wget -q https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oneclickvirt/podman/main/scripts/create_podman.sh
chmod +x create_podman.sh
./create_podman.sh

The interactive script increments container names (ct1, ct2, ...), SSH ports and public port ranges, and saves connection information in ctlog.

Unattended example:

export noninteractive=true
export PODMAN_CREATE_COUNT=3
export PODMAN_MEMORY_MB=512
export PODMAN_CPU=1
export PODMAN_SYSTEM=debian
export PODMAN_IPV6=n
./create_podman.sh

Variable	Description	Default
PODMAN_CREATE_COUNT	Number of new containers; PODMAN_CREATE_NUMS is also accepted	1
PODMAN_MEMORY_MB	Memory per container in MB	512
PODMAN_CPU	CPU limit per container	1
PODMAN_DISK_GB	Disk limit in GB, requiring btrfs qgroups	0
PODMAN_SYSTEM	Guest system; maintained version aliases are accepted	debian
PODMAN_IPV6	Request independent IPv6	n
PODMAN_CONTAINER_PREFIX	Container name prefix	ct
PODMAN_CONTAINER_START_NUM	First container number	continued from ctlog
PODMAN_START_SSH_PORT	First SSH host port	continued from ctlog
PODMAN_PUBLIC_PORT_START	First additional public port	continued from ctlog

Additional variables:

Variable	Description	Default
FORCE_UNINSTALL	Legacy switch to skip uninstall confirmation	false
ROOT_PASSWORD	Root password consumed by the container entrypoint	passed by the creation script
IPV6_ENABLED	Internal container IPv6 mode marker	false
PODMAN_SKIP_RESOURCE_CHECK	Skip repeated resource scans during batch creation	false
PODMAN_BATCH_MODE	Keep a temporary record for create_podman.sh to consume	false
PODMAN_ROOTLESS	Explicitly allow non-root execution of onepodman.sh/create_podman.sh	false
PODMAN_WORKDIR	ctlog working directory during rootless batch creation	current directory
PODMAN_SCRIPT_DIR	Cache directory for rootless batch scripts	$HOME/.local/share/oneclickvirt-podman/scripts
PODMAN_RELEASE_BASE_URL	Offline archive base, using <base>/<system>/<tar.gz>	GitHub Releases
PODMAN_GHCR_IMAGE	GHCR image prefix	ghcr.io/oneclickvirt/podman
PODMAN_SCRIPT_BASE_URL	Download base for SSH initialization and onepodman.sh	GitHub raw scripts
PODMAN_POD_NAME	Podman pod receiving the container and port mappings	unset
PODMAN_POD_JOIN_EXISTING	Join an existing pod; manage shared-network port conflicts yourself	false

Single-container creation appends a record to ctlog. Batch creation removes each temporary per-container record after appending it to ctlog, avoiding scattered files containing passwords.

Rootless example:

export PODMAN_ROOTLESS=true
./onepodman.sh ct1 1 512 "" 25000 34975 35000 n debian 0

Pod networking example:

export PODMAN_POD_NAME=ctpod1
./onepodman.sh ct1 1 512 "" 25000 34975 35000 n debian 0

During batch creation, setting PODMAN_POD_NAME without PODMAN_POD_JOIN_EXISTING=true derives a separate pod name from each container name, preventing SSH containers from unintentionally sharing one network namespace.

Query Batch Container Information

Run cat ctlog in the creation working directory. Each line is:

name SSH-port root-password CPU memory-MB first-port last-port disk-GB

Records contain passwords; keep them private.

Remove all containers and images

The following commands delete all containers and images visible to this runtime. Back up data and confirm the scope first.

podman ps -aq | xargs -r podman rm -f
podman images -q | xargs -r podman rmi -f

Remove unused volumes and state only after confirming they are no longer needed:

podman volume prune -f
podman system prune -af
rm -f ctlog

Restart All Containers After Host Reboot

New containers use --restart always. On systemd hosts the installer enables podman-restart.service and creates a fallback unit when the distribution does not provide one. Inspect it with systemctl status podman-restart.service.

For an existing container needing a dedicated systemd unit:

podman generate systemd --name ct1 > /etc/systemd/system/container-ct1.service
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable container-ct1

Choose one startup mechanism for a container to avoid duplicate management. To start stopped containers manually:

podman ps -aq -f status=exited | xargs -r podman start

See networking, images and troubleshooting for network modes, image sources and records.