Have you ever wondered about running Podman in a container: Podman in Podman, Podman in Docker, or even Podman in Kubernetes?

One of the most asked about topics to folks working on upstream container technologies is running Podman within a container. Most of this has historically been related to Docker in Docker (DIND), but now, people also want to run Podman in Podman (PINP) or Podman in Docker (PIND).

But Podman can be run in multiple ways, rootful and rootless. We end up with people wanting to run various combinations of rootful and rootless Podman:

• Rootful Podman in rootful Podman
• Rootless Podman in rootful Podman
• Rootful Podman in rootless Podman
• Rootless Podman in rootless Podman

You get the picture.

This blog will attempt to cover each combination, starting with a discussion of privileges. We'll start with the PINP scenario here in part one. In part two of the series, we'll cover similar ground but do so within the context of Kubernetes. Be sure to read both articles for a complete picture.

Rootless Podman running rootless Podman

$ podman run \
    --security-opt \
    label=disable \
    --user podman \
    --device /dev/fuse \
    quay.io/podman/stable \
    \
    podman run alpine echo hello