Contained

Advanced Techniques

Podman and Podman Desktop offer a number of other interesting features. For example, you can easily migrate Podman containers to Kubernetes after at least setting up a Kubernetes context. Podman Desktop automatically configures access to Kubernetes clusters when you create a child-based local Kubernetes cluster, generate a local OpenShift cluster, or configure access to a developer sandbox. If a Kubernetes cluster is available, you can view its details by right-clicking on the Podman Desktop icon. Use the Kubernetes submenu to identify the current context. This function is also used to deploy a container in a Kubernetes environment.

Another interesting feature of Podman Desktop is that you can use the environment to extend the functionality of the modular Podman system. You have the option of setting up extensions during the initial installation of the desktop environment. Extensions can, for example, enable support for virtual machines, such as Lima installations, and you can integrate third-party tools such as kind and the Docker Compose discussed here.

Available add-ons can be accessed from the Extensions menu (Figure 3). For example, you could set up minikube to use a local Kubernetes environment or Podman AI Lab to add large language model (LLM) support to Podman Desktop.

Figure 3: The Extensions feature in Podman Desktop lets you extend your Podman environment.

You can also configure the interaction with Red Hat OpenShift here. The Bootable Containers (bootc) option creates a bootable operating system from a container file. More specifically, you can convert containers into virtual machines or ISO and RAW images.

Conclusions

Today, the assumption is that half of all corporations run around half of their business applications in container environments – and the numbers are rising. Against this backdrop, the use of tools such as Podman has long been business-critical. Podman Desktop makes a significant contribution by simplifying standard tasks with Podman.