Global installation script

[senges]

Docker (and other projects) provides an URL endpoint to download a distribution agnostic installation script : https://get.docker.com.

Makes installation procedure super intuitive as it makes possible for anyone to install Docker on any Linux distribution without searching all the steps on the internet.

$  curl -Ssl https://get.docker.com | bash

I know this kind of curl | bash is considered bad practice. However, used with caution, it can make things super easy and save time to many people.

Is it something that has been considered ?

[TomSweeneyRedHat]

It's not something that has been considered. I like the thought, but I am a bit concerned about the potential security issues surrounding the idea. I'm certainly open to exploring further if you or others want to propose something.

[rhatdan]

Podman is an opensource mode, not a pure software company behind it. Podman works in the distribution model, and we believe that you should get your software from your distributions. We might make an exception for Mac and Windows, because they are based on a different model.

Podman also relies on many different packages and these differ based on the distribution. containers-selinux makes no sense on Ubuntu but is critical to Fedora. Bottom line, upstream is not going to package and distribute a single packaged piece of software to run on many many different Linux distributions and versions. If community wants to take on the pain of handling packaging software for other distros, then they can do it, but the core developers do not have the time or desire to do it.

I am closing this issue, but the conversation can continue.

[senges]

It's not something that has been considered. I like the thought, but I am a bit concerned about the potential security issues surrounding the idea. I'm certainly open to exploring further if you or others want to propose something.

I would be very happy to discuss security concerns and work on a few suggestions ! To illustrate, this would be a basic naive version of what I had in my mind. I don't really know where is the proper place to discuss this and suggest code tho.

Podman also relies on many different packages and these differ based on the distribution. containers-selinux makes no sense on Ubuntu but is critical to Fedora. Bottom line, upstream is not going to package and distribute a single packaged piece of software to run on many many different Linux distributions and versions. If community wants to take on the pain of handling packaging software for other distros, then they can do it, but the core developers do not have the time or desire to do it.

I think you've slightly missed the point of my suggestion, correct me if I'm wrong. My idea was not to create a single OS agnostic Podman release, but to offer a bash script that would apply the proper installation procedure based on the current OS release name. Check the link I posted above, it's a great basic example of what the https://get.podman.io script could look like.

I do agree that a script will never be able to handle tricky situations, and should not be presented as the proper way to install Podman. It's not a perfect solution. But it could be presented as a convenient non-interactive way to install Podman in low concerns environment (such as test bench, dev environment..). In my humble experience, it can be very convenient sometimes.

I think Docker has an elegant way of introducing it in its documentation :

Docker provides a convenience script at get.docker.com to install Docker into development environments quickly and non-interactively. The convenience script is not recommended for production environments, but can be used as an example to create a provisioning script that is tailored to your needs.

Obviously the final decision is not on me, but I like Podman and I genuinely think it could add a layer of comfort over it's everyday usage. And I would rather make it official as far a possible.

[rhatdan]

Ok if this is using disto packages, and was just a script to figure out which OS and what procedure to walk the user through, I would be fine with it.

The script should be here with installation.md.

[rhatdan]

The script should be available in both sites github.com/containers/podman and github.com/contaienrs/podman.io

[TomSweeneyRedHat]

@senges FWIW, what you were thinking "but to offer a bash script that would apply the proper installation procedure based on the current OS release name" is what I was thinking you were saying too. We're on the same page, WOOT!

[senges]

Sorry had a lot going on in my life recently, I'm working on the script right now. Will make a PR very soon so you can have a glance at it. Keep you updated 👍