From what I have seen, rootless podman seems to take more effort (even if marginal) than rootful one. I want to make a more informed decision for the containers, so I would like to ask.
- What is a rootless podman good for? How much does it help in terms of security, and does it have other benefits?
- One of the benefits commonly mentioned is for when container is breached. Then, running container on sudo-capable user would give no security benefits. Does it mean I should run podman services on a non-privileged user?
Thank you!
A rootless container is good for security.
A lifetime old basic rule is never run anything as root, not even your podman :)
I only ever use rootless podman jn my system and I fond it pretty easy to actually run: zero effort whatsoever.
Why you say it’s complicated?
Yes I always create one unprivileged user (not even in the sudoers or wheel group ofc) for every service I containerize. And create a dedicated network for the service too.
It only takes a few lines in a normal docker compose yaml.
Also I use docker compose on podman, yes docker compose not podman compose.
Edit2: refer to this post of mine on how installed immich on rootless podman https://wiki.gardiol.org/doku.php?id=services%3Aimmich as you can see, the most complex part is… Useradd & mkdir LOL
Edit: also podman play nice with iptables and nft (which should be always preferred nowadays) instead docker can mess your system good, and don’t work with nft tables, unless quirks quirks…
You have a typo in the title for the section about backups.
In that post you use the compose format. Have you used quadlet? My understanding is that’s the “preferred” way to do things, I’ve also had some issues and am trying to decide if it’s worth it. Any thoughts?
No, quadlet seems to require systemd and I run OpenRC.
I run 50+ containers with rootless Podman compose (on CoreOS) and haven’t encountered any unsolvable issues so far.
I’ve never tried quadlets but haven’t found a need or any driving reason to do so.