Podman in Production
Containers, Orchestration, and Observability with Podman.
Written for Podman 6
This 375-page guide starts with Podman's daemonless, rootless architecture and follows a workload into production. It covers systemd and Quadlet, health checks and self-healing, and OpenTelemetry. It assumes that you already ship Linux containers.
One purchase, every format
- PDF + EPUB
- Audiobook, MP3 + M4B
- 9 agent skills
- Examples archive
Polar handles the secure checkout. Every file is DRM-free and available right after purchase, and updates to the book, the audiobook, and the skills are free.
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The first four parts explain container internals, images, networking, and security. The rest of the book covers Quadlet, health checks, OpenTelemetry, and a comparison of four orchestration approaches. Open a part to see its chapters.
What this book assumes, and how to read it
Part 1 Foundations 4 chapters
- 1 Why Podman
- 2 Linux Container Primitives
- 3 Installation and Configuration
- 4 Rootless Containers
Part 2 The Container Lifecycle 6 chapters
- 5 Images and Containerfiles
- 6 Building with Buildah
- 7 Distributing Images with Skopeo
- 8 Running Containers
- 9 Storage, Volumes, and Artifacts
- 10 Pods
Part 3 Networking 2 chapters
- 11 Networking with Netavark
- 12 Rootless Networking with pasta
Part 4 Security 2 chapters
- 13 The Podman Security Model
- 14 Supply Chain Security
Part 5 Orchestrating with Podman 6 chapters
- 15 systemd and Quadlet
- 16 Health Checks and Self-Healing
- 17 Compose and the Docker API
- 18 Kubernetes Workflows
- 19 Observability and OpenTelemetry
- 20 A Production Deployment with Quadlet
Part 6 Podman Among the Alternatives 2 chapters
- 21 The Same App Four Ways
- 22 Podman in a Kubernetes World
Part 7 Appendices 3 appendices
- A Docker to Podman Migration
- B Troubleshooting Field Guide
- C Configuration Reference
For engineers who already ship containers.
This is a production field guide. It assumes you know Docker and Linux and picks up where the getting-started guides stop.
- Practicing DevOps, platform, and SRE engineers who already know Docker and Linux.
- Teams moving production workloads from a daemon-based runtime to a daemonless, rootless one.
- Engineers who want systemd, Quadlet, health checks, and OpenTelemetry wired together end to end.
One purchase, every format.
The $49 package on Polar contains the ebook, the audiobook, the agent skills, and the examples archive. Updates to all of it are free, and you download them from the same place.
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Ebook
PDF and EPUB
The typeset PDF for the desk and a reflowable EPUB for the reader. 375 pages, DRM-free, both from the same edition.
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Audiobook
MP3 and M4B
About 10 hours with chapter marks. M4B for audiobook players, MP3 for everything else. The narration is AI-generated from scripts adapted from the manuscript for listening; the listings stay in the ebook.
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Agent skills
Nine skills for coding agents
Task-oriented skills in the open Agent Skills format, from rootless foundations to Quadlet in production. They install into Codex, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or Gemini CLI, and each bundles its chapters and examples as references. Licensed for your own use, like the book.
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Examples
Runnable examples archive
The examples tree behind the book, ready to run. Every future update to the PDF, EPUB, audiobook, and skills is included at no extra charge.
Get the book.
The price is $49. Your purchase includes the DRM-free PDF and EPUB, the audiobook as MP3 and M4B, nine agent skills for coding agents, the runnable examples archive, and free updates to all of it.
Coming soon Companion course · separate purchase
Podman Training, the companion course.
A self-paced course on unix.institute that follows the book chapter by chapter: 23 sections, each with a concept refresher, a hands-on lab on the book's examples, and a graded knowledge check, 270 questions in total. It is a separate purchase at €79 and opens for enrollment soon. The book stands on its own; the course adds the labs and the checks.
The signup uses double opt-in and joins the course list and the Sysinit Press book list. Every message includes an unsubscribe link.
Get Sysinit Press book news.
This form joins the shared Sysinit Press book list. It carries release news and updates to published editions, including Podman in Production.
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