Podman-compose support

[seant-me]

Having the ability to 'run' a container is great, however what if you want to
Use Cases:

1. You want to redeploy your container to latest image
2. You want to launch a container with a different version
3. You've forgotten how to launch a running container with working configuration (volumes, ports, etc.)
4. You want to launch multiple containers based on an image
5. You want to maintain complex config to run a container

There are many ways to accomplish this but docker-compose solves these problems. Podman-compose is the podman version of docker-compose. https://github.com/containers/podman-compose

The docker-compose.yml files can be stored in ~/.config/... by default and user-defined allowable
It would be nice to have a textbox to write a new docker-compose file. Also, a validator.
It would be nice to have a link to docker-compose getting started documentation (https://docs.docker.com/compose/gettingstarted/) or example (https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/)

[marusak]

This was also requested for docker but we never did it.
It would be definitely doable, especially the first part. We have a nice path select component, so we can just allow user to find the compose file on the system and run it.

It would be nice to have a textbox to write a new docker-compose file. Also, a validator.

This is a bit more out of scope. A proper file editor would be probably a full subproject. Just dropping content into contenteditable element and then reading it again does not seem like a proper solution.
But we should give this some thought.

[seant-me]

For reference:
Validation is provided by docker-compose config[1]. It doesn't seem to exist in podman-compose as yet (or planned?) And I don't know if you would want to have a hard dependency on docker-compose. It's an option though.

[1] https://docs.docker.com/compose/reference/config/

[seant-me]

1. Just being able to have a list of docker compose files and being able to execute in the ui would be extremely helpful. I could drop all my compose files into a directory and they would populate.
2. Being able to save a run container 'task' as a docker-compose file would be help. You could just add a checkbox to the run tab "save configuration as a docker-compose file" would be great too.
3. As you stated, running a preexisting docker-compose using path select component works.

[DerInternets]

This would be a great feature. Currently i have to run portainer in parallel to do this - a unified Web UI would be awesome.

[EvgenyPrikhodko]

hi
Have a support plan?

[czadikem]

Yeah is this going to be build in soon?

[garrett]

There is currently no timeframe for importing files (including compose files, among others) as definitions to get a container (or group of containers, including a pod) up and running, but it's something I'd like for us to add and it's something I've thought about and have written a little bit:

• Feature Request - process Kube and Compose manifests via Cockpit UI #735 (comment)
• Cockpit Podman redesign! cockpit#16059 (comment)

Even exporting and importing "kube" definitions, with podman generate kube POD_OR_CONTAINER_HERE (which generates YAML) and podman play kube YAML_FILE_HERE would be useful for several of the reasons why someone would want podman-compose support. (Although not all. It would be great if we supported podman-compose for an "import" too.)

Right now, if you're happy with using a command line, you can use something like this kube approach. It's originally meant for using podman on one machine and kubernetes on another, to migrate between the two, but you can migrate containers and pods (groups) of containers between podman on both sides still. It'd still be great to have this kind of functionality in Cockpit-Podman, of course.

Additionally, I'd like for us to support a rebuild container option that would allow one to "edit" values to build the container again and replace it with the newer version. This would also cover several of the cases above, without having to export and import or mess with creating any files manually.

TL;DR: I agree; it'd be great. We're not working on it right now, but it would be nice to solve these points in various ways, including podman-compose support.

[johndbritton]

@garrett I'm interested in this feature and might have some cycles to put into it depending on difficulty. Any direction you can provide around what is likely to be accepted into the existing module would be helpful.