Configuring Rootless Mode with Podman

Podman is a container engine that can replace Docker. QueryPie supports both Docker and Podman container engine environments. Podman operates in Rootless Mode in basic installation configuration. Accordingly, if you need to configure a Rootless Mode environment according to your customer’s security policy, we recommend implementing it with Podman.

Installing Podman Easily

You can install Podman easily using setup.v2.sh. Podman automatically installed by setup.v2.sh applies Rootless Mode by default.

The method to install Podman using setup.v2.sh is as follows.


$ bash <(curl -s https://dl.querypie.com/setup.v2.sh) --install-container-engine

This command automatically detects the Linux distribution of the server and installs Podman if Podman is smoothly supported. Linux distributions that install Podman are as follows.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, 9, 10
Rocky 8, 9
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Linux distributions that install Docker instead of Podman are as follows. For reasons why Docker should be used in the Linux distributions below, please refer to this document: https://querypie.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/QCP/pages/1298530305/Docker+Podman+and+Linux+Distributions+KO?atl_f=PAGETREE

Amazon Linux 2, Amazon Linux 2023
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Manually Installing Rootless Mode Podman

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Rocky, you can install Podman directly manually with the following commands.


$ sudo dnf -y -q --best install podman podman-plugins podman-manpages podman-docker
$ systemctl --user enable --now podman.socket

Please note that you must activate the podman.socket service using the systemctl command. You must activate the podman.socket service to use Docker Compose and Podman together.

When using the --user option in the systemctl command, it is installed in Rootless Mode. If you do not use the --user option, it is installed in Rootful Mode.

On Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, you can install Podman directly manually with the following commands.


$ sudo apt -qq update
$ sudo apt-get -y -qq install podman podman-docker
$ systemctl --user enable --now podman.socket

Installing QueryPie in Rootless Mode Podman

You can install QueryPie easily in a Rootless Mode Podman environment using setup.v2.sh.

When installing QueryPie for the first time, execute the following command from the home directory of the Linux account where you will install the Compose package. setup.v2.sh automatically installs the recommended version of QueryPie.


$ bash <(curl -s https://dl.querypie.com/setup.v2.sh)

If you want to install by specifying a QueryPie version, you can specify the version as follows.


$ bash <(curl -s https://dl.querypie.com/setup.v2.sh) --install 11.0.1

When you execute the above command, the entire installation process is automatically performed, including package.tar.gz configuration for Compose, .env environment variable configuration, Container image download, Migration execution, Container execution, and systemd service registration for Rootless Mode Podman.

Linux Server Restart and systemd Service Registration

For Rootless Mode Podman, if the Linux server restarts, Containers will not run automatically without additional configuration. This is a characteristic of Rootless Mode Podman.

For Containers to run automatically when the Linux server restarts, you must register and activate a systemd service that executes the podman compose up -d command. systemd service files for QueryPie are provided by default in package.tar.gz for Compose.

If you install QueryPie using setup.v2.sh, it automatically performs these systemd service registration and activation processes. Therefore, users do not need to execute this part directly.

However, to smoothly perform QueryPie installation and operation, understanding of systemd service registration and activation processes is necessary, and you can solve problems by directly controlling systemd services.

First, system configuration is required for systemd user mode services to be automatically activated. You must turn on linger mode for this user using the loginctl command. If you do not apply this setting, systemd services will only work after the user logs into the Linux system. To automatically activate systemd services when the user is not logged into the Linux server, please turn on linger mode.


$ sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER

Create a symbolic link pointing to the systemd service file under $HOME/.config/systemd/user/.


$ systemctl --user link querypie/current/systemd/podman-querypie-database.service
Created symlink /home/ec2-user/.config/systemd/user/podman-querypie-database.service → /home/ec2-user/querypie/current/systemd/podman-querypie-database.service.
$ systemctl --user link querypie/current/systemd/podman-querypie-app.service
Created symlink /home/ec2-user/.config/systemd/user/podman-querypie-app.service → /home/ec2-user/querypie/current/systemd/podman-querypie-app.service.

Activate the service with the systemd enable command.


$ systemctl --user enable --now podman-querypie-database.service
Created symlink /home/ec2-user/.config/systemd/user/default.target.wants/podman-querypie-database.service → /home/ec2-user/querypie/11.1.1/systemd/podman-querypie-database.service.
$ systemctl --user enable --now podman-querypie-app.service
Created symlink /home/ec2-user/.config/systemd/user/default.target.wants/podman-querypie-app.service → /home/ec2-user/querypie/11.1.1/systemd/podman-querypie-app.service.

When Using Separately Configured MySQL

If you use a separately configured MySQL instead of running MySQL on one Linux server using the default ./querypie/<version>/compose.yml, you can change the systemd service operation scope.

You just need to not activate podman-querypie-database.service. You can turn off running systemd services with the following command.


$ systemctl --user disable podman-querypie-database.service

To smoothly operate QueryPie, you must be familiar with managing systemd services using the systemctl command. However, this document does not cover in detail how to manage systemd services using the systemctl command.

References

Running containers automatically using systemd services in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Rootless Podman environment
- https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/container-systemd-persist-reboot
- https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html/building_running_and_managing_containers/assembly_porting-containers-to-systemd-using-podman_building-running-and-managing-containers