Provided by: podman_5.4.1+ds1-1_amd64 
NAME
podman-auto-update - Auto update containers according to their auto-update policy
SYNOPSIS
podman auto-update [options]
DESCRIPTION
podman auto-update pulls down new container images and restarts containers configured for auto updates.
To make use of auto updates, the container or Kubernetes workloads must run inside a systemd unit. After
a successful update of an image, the containers using the image get updated by restarting the systemd
units they run in. Please refer to podman-systemd.unit(5) on how to run Podman under systemd.
To configure a container for auto updates, it must be created with the io.containers.autoupdate label or
the AutoUpdate field in podman-systemd.unit(5) with one of the following two values:
• registry: If the label is present and set to registry, Podman reaches out to the corresponding
registry to check if the image has been updated. The label image is an alternative to registry
maintained for backwards compatibility. An image is considered updated if the digest in the
local storage is different than the one of the remote image. If an image must be updated,
Podman pulls it down and restarts the systemd unit executing the container. The registry policy
requires a fully-qualified image reference (e.g., quay.io/podman/stable:latest) to be used to
create the container. This enforcement is necessary to know which image to actually check and
pull. If an image ID was used, Podman would not know which image to check/pull anymore.
• local: If the autoupdate label is set to local, Podman compares the image digest of the
container to the one in the local container storage. If they differ, the local image is
considered to be newer and the systemd unit gets restarted.
Auto Updates and Kubernetes YAML
Podman supports auto updates for Kubernetes workloads. The auto-update policy can be configured directly
via podman-systemd.unit(5) or inside the Kubernetes YAML with the Podman-specific annotations mentioned
below:
• io.containers.autoupdate: "registry|local" to apply the auto-update policy to all containers
• io.containers.autoupdate/$container: "registry|local" to apply the auto-update policy to
$container only
• io.containers.sdnotify: "conmon|container" to apply the sdnotify policy to all containers
• io.containers.sdnotify/$container: "conmon|container" to apply the sdnotify policy to $container
only
By default, the autoupdate policy is set to "disabled", the sdnotify policy is set to "conmon".
Systemd Unit and Timer
Podman ships with a podman-auto-update.service systemd unit. This unit is triggered daily at midnight by
the podman-auto-update.timer systemd timer. The timer can be altered for custom time-based updates if
desired. The unit can further be invoked by other systemd units (e.g., via the dependency tree) or
manually via systemctl start podman-auto-update.service.
OPTIONS
--authfile=path
Path of the authentication file. Default is ${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}/containers/auth.json on Linux, and
$HOME/.config/containers/auth.json on Windows/macOS. The file is created by podman login. If the
authorization state is not found there, $HOME/.docker/config.json is checked, which is set using docker
login.
Note: There is also the option to override the default path of the authentication file by setting the
REGISTRY_AUTH_FILE environment variable. This can be done with export REGISTRY_AUTH_FILE=path.
Alternatively, the io.containers.autoupdate.authfile container label can be configured. In that case,
Podman will use the specified label's value instead.
--dry-run
Check for the availability of new images but do not perform any pull operation or restart any service or
container. The UPDATED field indicates the availability of a new image with "pending".
--format=format
Change the default output format. This can be of a supported type like 'json' or a Go template. Valid
placeholders for the Go template are listed below:
┌────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Placeholder │ Description │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ .Container │ ID and name of the container │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ .ContainerID │ ID of the container │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ .ContainerName │ Name of the container │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ .Image │ Name of the image │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ .Policy │ Auto-update policy of the container │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ .Unit │ Name of the systemd unit │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ .Updated │ Update status: true,false,failed │
└────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────┘
--rollback
If restarting a systemd unit after updating the image has failed, rollback to using the previous image
and restart the unit another time. Default is true.
Note that detecting if a systemd unit has failed is best done by the container sending the READY message
via SDNOTIFY. This way, restarting the unit waits until having received the message or a timeout kicked
in. Without that, restarting the systemd unit may succeed even if the container has failed shortly
after.
For a container to send the READY message via SDNOTIFY it must be created with the --sdnotify=container
option (see podman-run(1)). The application running inside the container can then execute systemd-notify
--ready when ready or use the sdnotify bindings of the specific programming language (e.g.,
sd_notify(3)).
--tls-verify
Require HTTPS and verify certificates when contacting registries (default: true). If explicitly set to
true, TLS verification is used. If set to false, TLS verification is not used. If not specified, TLS
verification is used unless the target registry is listed as an insecure registry in containers-
registries.conf(5)
EXAMPLES
Create a Quadlet file configured for auto updates:
$ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/sleep.container
[Container]
Image=registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora:latest
Exec=sleep infinity
AutoUpdate=registry
Generate a systemd service from the Quadlet file by reloading the systemd user daemon:
$ systemctl --user daemon-reload
Start the systemd service and make sure the container is running
$ systemctl --user start sleep.service
$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
f8e4759798d4 registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora:latest sleep infinity 2 seconds ago Up 2 seconds systemd-sleep
Check if a new image is available via --dry-run:
$ podman auto-update --dry-run --format "{{.Image}} {{.Updated}}"
registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora:latest pending
Update the service:
$ podman auto-update
UNIT CONTAINER IMAGE POLICY UPDATED
sleep.service f8e4759798d4 (systemd-sleep) registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora:latest registry true
SEE ALSO
podman(1), podman-generate-systemd(1), podman-run(1), podman-systemd.unit(5), sd_notify(3),
systemd.unit(5)
podman-auto-update(1)