• Quik@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    75
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    One thing the author probably hasn’t done yet or just doesn’t mention is that you can configure .container services with systemd-podman units (often called quadlets), e.g. a simple MariaDB container would look like this:

    [Unit]
    Description=MariaDB container
    
    [Container]
    Image=docker.io/mariadb:latest
    Environment=MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=rootpassword
    Environment=MYSQL_USER=testuser
    Environment=MYSQL_PASSWORD=testpassword
    Environment=MYSQL_DATABASE=testdb
    
    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target
    

    Short intro Full reference

    This is superb, because it means your containers finally feel well-integrated with the rest of the OS and you can use systemctl, journalctl, etc. just like you would with other services.

    Personally, I use this as an alternative to Podman/Docker compose and have been very happy with it running rootless containers from Nextcloud, Pufferpanel, Forgejo, Authentik, etc. (ask me for .container files if you need any help, I’m currently working on a small repo with a collection)

    • Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 days ago

      Excuse me, peasant crontab enjoyer here, but what?! I could write a (mostly) declarative system without having to learn Nix?! I should probably be learning systemd anyway, it’s looking more and more like the present, let alone the future.

      I run a bunch of remote reverse proxies that are functionally identical, but for having a different Cloudflare key and calling for a different static IP

      Could I write the entire config to a self hosted Git > pull that repo > change those two variables and have a running machine?

      Remote updates have been kicking my ass, I either can’t wrap my head around Screen or it isn’t fit for my need. Being able to pull the new config from Git over Tailscale and then run it would be game changing for me.

      • rutrum@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        2 days ago

        Most compiled output of NixOS configuration (besides packages, perhaps) is just systemd units anyway. I found out quickly when learning nix that my lack of systemd prowess was going to cap how well I could understand NixOS.

      • Quik@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 days ago

        Yeah, it’s great that Gitea/Forgejo has a copy-paste snippet in the docs, but you can actually use that with pretty much every container.

        There is this useful tool to convert containers, podman commands or even compose files to podman-systemd units: https://github.com/containers/podlet

      • Quik@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        2 days ago

        Your distrust is kind of reasonable: I’ve been using this a lot for the past year and there definitely were two or three moments where it was a bit annoying, too little transparent on what commands will be run, etc.

    • dwt@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      Deutsch
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 days ago

      I like this, but even though pod man runs perfect rootless, quadlets can only run as root for now :-(

        • dwt@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          Deutsch
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          How do you do that? Please link a description. This has been a major stumbling block for me

            • dwt@feddit.org
              link
              fedilink
              Deutsch
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 day ago

              Yeah, that works, but it means the services cannot be managed by systemctl as root anymore. Or am I missing something?

              • mholiv@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                1 day ago

                You can if you want to. But I don’t think that is best practice. The idea of quadlets is the bring Linux norms to containers. You contain and manage all permissions for that container in that user.

                I personally have completely separated users and selinux mls contexts for each container group (formerly docker compose file) and I manage them thusly. It’s more annoying but it substantially more secure.

                This being said I think you can do it as root. I think this might work but I am not certain sudo systemctl --user -M theuser@ status myunit.service

        • Quik@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          2 days ago

          Same here; Rootless Podman Quadlets gang unite (there is two of us in total)

      • Quik@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 days ago

        Just place your Quadlets in the $HOME/.config/containers/systemd/ directory for this ;)

        The reference I linked to earlier also contains more information on rootless.

        • dwt@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          Deutsch
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          While that is true, that is not how I would run services normally with SystemD. Those would be defined globally, but run as a user.

          Definitiv then in the user home, means that I dint see them with systemctl which is very annoying.