Podman Cheat Sheet
May 21, 2025·
·
1 min read
Derek Armstrong

Start and Stop Containers
Start a container:
podman start <container_name_or_id>Stop a container:
podman stop <container_name_or_id>
Build an Image
Build an image from a Dockerfile:
podman build -t <image_name:tag> .
Run a Container
Run a container:
podman run --name <container_name> <image_name:tag>Run a container and remove it after it exits:
podman run --rm <image_name:tag>
Remove Containers and Images
Remove a container:
podman rm <container_name_or_id>Remove all stopped containers:
podman container pruneRemove an image:
podman rmi <image_name_or_id>
Podman Compose (if using podman-compose)
Start containers with Podman Compose:
podman-compose upStop containers with Podman Compose:
podman-compose downBuild images with Podman Compose:
podman-compose build
Additional Useful Commands
Inspect
Inspect a container (view details about a running or stopped container):
podman inspect <container_name_or_id>
Logs
View logs for a container:
podman logs <container_name_or_id>
List Containers and Images
List all containers:
podman ps -aList running containers:
podman psList all images:
podman images
Authors
Staff Software Engineer | Solutions Architect
Staff Software Engineer, AI Systems Engineer, and Solutions Architect with 10+ years of experience designing and shipping production systems at enterprise scale. I lead teams building payment platforms processing billions in annual volume, architect cloud-native infrastructure, and integrate AI/ML capabilities into mission-critical systems. Passionate about turning complex technical challenges into reliable, scalable solutions — and about mentoring the engineers who will carry that work forward.