I think the Kubernetes Pod concept is what you're looking for, or at least it allows you to run multiple containers together by following a well-established standard.
My first approach was like you, to do everything as a command to see it working, something like:
# Create a pod, publishing port 8080/TCP from internal 80/TCP
$ podman pod create \
--name my-pod \
--publish 8080:80/TCP \
--publish 8113:113/TCP
# Create a first container inside the pod
$ podman run --detach \
--pod my-pod \
--name cont1-name \
--env MY_VAR="my val" \
nginxdemos/hello
# Create a second container inside the pod
$ podman run --detach \
--pod my-pod \
--name cont2-name \
--env MY_VAR="my val" \
greboid/nullidentd
# Check by
$ podman container ls; podman pod ls
Now that you have a pod, you can export it as a Pod manifest by using podman generate kube my-pod > my-pod.yaml
.
As soon as you try your own examples, you will see how not everything is exported as you would expect (like networks or volumes), but at least it serves you as a base where you can continue to work.
Assuming the same example, in a YAML Pod manifest, it looks like this my-pod.yaml
:
# Created with podman-2.2.1
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
labels:
app: my-pod
name: my-pod
spec:
containers:
# Create the first container: Dummy identd server on 113/TCP
- name: cont2-name
image: docker.io/greboid/nullidentd:latest
command: [ "/usr/sbin/inetd", "-i" ]
env:
- name: MY_VAR
value: my val
# Ensure not to overlap other 'containerPort' values within this pod
ports:
- containerPort: 113
hostPort: 8113
protocol: TCP
workingDir: /
# Create a second container.
- name: cont1-name
image: docker.io/nginxdemos/hello:latest
command: [ "nginx", "-g", "daemon off;" ]
env:
- name: MY_VAR
value: my val
# Ensure not to overlap other 'containerPort' values within this pod
ports:
- containerPort: 80
hostPort: 8080
protocol: TCP
workingDir: /
restartPolicy: Never
status: {}
When this file is used like this:
# Use a Kubernetes-compatible Pod manifest to create and run a pod
$ podman play kube my-pod.yaml
# Check
$ podman container ls; podman pod ls
# Output
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
1a53a5c0f076 docker.io/nginxdemos/hello:latest nginx -g daemon o... 8 seconds ago Up 6 seconds ago 0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8113->113/tcp my-pod-cont1-name
351065b66b55 docker.io/greboid/nullidentd:latest /usr/sbin/inetd -... 10 seconds ago Up 6 seconds ago 0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8113->113/tcp my-pod-cont2-name
e61c68752e35 k8s.gcr.io/pause:3.2 14 seconds ago Up 7 seconds ago 0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8113->113/tcp b586ca581129-infra
POD ID NAME STATUS CREATED INFRA ID # OF CONTAINERS
b586ca581129 my-pod Running 14 seconds ago e61c68752e35 3
You will be able to access the 'Hello World' served by nginx at 8080, and the dummy identd server at 8113.