Podman Desktop 1.6 Release! π
This release introduces:
- Minikube Featured Extension: Minikube extension to create local Kubernetes clusters in containers.
- Podman 4.8.2: Podman 4.8.2 is now included in Windows and Mac installers.
- Setting Page for Command-Line Tools: Manage and update your CLI tools.
- Kubernetes Contexts Manager: Browse all your kubernetes contexts, set default and remove unused ones.
- Editable Podman Machine for MacOS: Easy resize and reconfiguration of the Podman runtime environment.
- Filters for Containers and Pods Lists: Focus on the containers and Pods you are working with.
- Sorting on Volumes and Images List: Sort volumes or images with your prefered criterias.
- Environment Colums on Containers and Pods lists: Easy catch of the environment on which a container or a pod is running on.
- Extension API Improvements: Another set of improvements to the extension API enabling more goodness for π¦ Podman Desktop's extensions.
Podman Desktop 1.6 is now available. Click here to download it!
Release Detailsβ
Minikube featured extensionβ
For developers who need to run Kubernetes locally and reproduce an environment close to production for development and experimentation purposes, Podman Desktop allows users to easily set up that environment on a local machine. There are two extensions providing the capability to configure a open source Kubernetes cluster locally, you can either choose between Kind or Minikube.
The Minikube extension allows you to install Minikube on your workstation and also to setup a Kubernetes cluster locally running in a container! Yes, you read that correctly - in a container similar to how Kind works. The advantage is that it's lighter and faster to start. With Minikube, one of the advantage, is that you can build your images locally with Podman and get them automatically available in your local Kubernetes cluster - which will speed up your turnarounds when you want to test your application. If you want to learn more this, read the following blog post.
Configuring and managing your setup is getting easier with the addition of a new section in the Settings to manage command-line tools. In Podman Desktop, extensions can list command-line tools that are helpful to their users or required to make use of the installed extensions.
There are two command-line tools within Podman Desktop that allows you to view whether they are installed or require an update:
- Compose binary for running 'podman compose' commands.
- kubectl for interacting with Kubernetes clusters.
From the settings you can see the command-line tools that are installed, and you can see the version - and when a new version is available, you'll get a small notification to allow you easily update to that version.
Kubernetes Contexts Managerβ
We are introducing a new screen available from the Settings which allows you to easily manage your Kubernetes contexts. Podman Desktop was already providing the handy context switcher available from the status bar, but when you get to work with multiple Kubernetes environments, it's not uncommon to end with a big and long list of Kubernetes contexts.
The new Kubernetes Contexts screen allows you to easily see all your registered Kubernetes contexts. You can use the screen to clean up your registered contexts, or set the current (default) context.
Editable Podman Machineβ
A Podman machine is a virtual environment specifically designed to run Podman containers on Mac and Windows. It allows users to manage and operate containerized applications in an isolated and controlled setting. When creating a Podman machine, you configure its settings: memory, CPU(s) and disk size.
We've received the feedback regarding the ability to reconfigure your Podman machine on the go. This is now possible for macOS users, and particularly useful when you start with an environment and need to scale it up based on new needs and containers you would like to run in your Podman environment.
You'll notice we improved the sliders to configure the Podman machine's options - and also introduced a way to enter numeric values directly.
Tabs/Filters for Containers and Podsβ
Being able to quickly identify the containers and the pods you are working with is critical when you are iterating on the development of your application. For this reason, we added filters at the top of the lists of Containers and Pods that allow you to easily view all the containers/pods, only those that are running, or only those that are stopped.
Sorting for Volumes and Images listsβ
The lists of Volumes and Images have improved and are now have the ability to be sorted by the criteria of your choice. You can for example filter images by their size - which can be convenient when you want to clean up your environment.
Environment columns on Containers and Pods listsβ
Podman Desktop is able to work with multiple providers: it could work with multiple container engines and multiple Kubernetes environments too. In order to make it easier to identify the containers and the pods and differentiate them depending on which environment they are running onto, we are introducing a new environment column in the list of Containers and Pods to display a badge.
Better visibility to the containers running in Podsβ
The list of Pods has been refined to provide easier visibility and access to the containers running within each of them. Each of the containers now have one dot and you can hover each dot to display the info about the container - and if you click on it you'll be able to access the details of the container.
Extension API improvements