Podman Desktop is Red Hat's new tool offering for container management
Red Hat unveiled recently through a post, the first major release of Podman Desktop, a GUI implementation for building, running, and managing containers that competes with products like Rancher Desktop and Docker Desktop.
Podman Desktop allows developers without knowledge systems administration build, run, test, and publish microservices and applications developed for insulation systems From containers on your workstation before deploying them to production environments.
After months of hard work, we're pleased to announce the general availability (GA) of Podman Desktop 1.0. Let's explore what Podman Desktop is and why it can be advantageous for enterprise developers.
Integration with Kubernetes and OpenShift platforms is supported, as well as using various runtimes to run containers, such as Podman Engine , Podman Lima, crc, and Docker Engine.
The environment on the developer's local system can mirror the configuration of the production environment in which finished applications run (among other things, multi-node Kubernetes clusters and OpenShift environments can be simulated on the local system).
Of the main key features Podman Desktop highlights the following:
- Cross-platform, can be installed and run on Windows, macOS, and Linux
- Configure and install via Podman, Kind, Red Hat OpenShift Local, Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift
- Allows you to create, run, manage, and debug containers and pods
- You can run pods with or without Kubernetes
- It has an integrated terminal to access the containers
- Allows management of multiple container engines
- Compatible with Docker Compose
- Lets run Kubernetes YAML
- Generate Kubernetes YAML from Pods
- Podify and Kubify: Turn containers into pods and Kubernetes
- VPN and proxy settings
- Image registration management
- Configure multiple OCI records
- Air-Gapped Installation
- Bridge between local and remote environments
- Enables remotely managed services locally
- Extensibility
- Ability to extend container engines or Kubernetes providers
- Extension points to add actions, menus, settings and enrich the user interface with specific capabilities
It is mentioned that support for additional engines to run containers, Kubernetes providers and tool kits can be implemented in the form of plugins to Podman's desktop. For example, plugins are available to run a single node OpenShift Local cluster locally and connect to the OpenShift Developer Sandbox cloud service.
Podman Desktop is a container management tool that allows developers to easily create, manage, and deploy containers on their local machine. Podman Desktop downloads, installs, and abstracts the settings from the underlying environment. This makes it a lightweight and efficient option for container management without the overhead of having to manage everything locally.
In addition to this, it is also highlighted that tools are provided for managing container images, working with pods and partitions, create images from Containerfile and Dockerfile, connect to containers via terminal, download images from OCI container registries and publish your images to them, manage resources available in containers (memory, CPU, storage).
Podman Desktop can also be used to convert container images and connect to isolation engines On-premises containers and external Kubernetes-based infrastructure to host your pods and generate YAML files for Kubernetes or run Kubernetes YAML on an on-premises system without Kubernetes.
It is possible to minimize the application to the system tray for quick administration through a widget that allows, without being distracted from development, to evaluate the status of containers, stop and start containers, manage environments based on Podman toolkits and Kind.
Finally, for those interested in this tool, they should know that the Podman Desktop code is written in TypeScript using the Electron platform and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.
As for interested in trying or installing Podman Desktop on their system, they should know that ready-made builds are offered for Linux, Windows and macOS.