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Podman is a powerful tool for developing, shipping, and running applications. It utilizes a technology called containerization, which basically packages whatever program you'd like into a lightweight container, isolated from the system. Containers are great to use since they allow you to run whatever you'd like with a single command, without having to install dependencies. For example, you can run MySQL in a container with a single command!
Need a database? Nest runs an instance of PostgreSQL that should work for most use cases!
Similar tools like Docker require running a corresponding service, but the magic of Podman is that it doesn't require a service, meaning you can get up and running immediately!
Using Podman
There's two core concepts to understand before using Podman: images and containers. Containers are like what was said at the start of this guide - just an isolated box where a program can run, with all of its dependencies already there. But what's an image? An image is a read-only template with instructions for creating a Podman container. There's lots of different images that you can use; for example, there's one for PostgreSQL, another for a Minecraft server, and so on. You'll find most images on Docker Hub, and some on Quay.
To create a container, you can use the podman run command. Try running podman run hello-world. You should see a message from Podman after the image is downloaded!
There's a lot more that you can do with Podman. Most images on Docker Hub will give you some instructions on how to use it (such as required environment variables). Check out the Podman docs for more information!
Hint: Podman doesn't seem to work for you? Try Docker instead! We suggest trying Podman first because it has a smaller footprint, which helps keep Nest working for everyone!