Podman support

[Herohtar]

#139 was closed with a comment saying that CLI 1.x now works with podman, but it does not appear to be true. I get the following output when running nhost up:

Setting up Nhost development environment...
Starting Nhost development environment...
Error: unknown flag: --project-directory
See 'podman --help'
failed to start Nhost development environment: failed to start docker compose: exit status 125

As I understand it, podman itself can work with docker-compose, but it appears that the CLI is running the docker compose ... command rather than docker-compose. That means it gets passed to podman via podman-docker, and the compose command is not supported by podman:

$ docker compose
Error: unrecognized command `podman compose`
Try 'podman --help' for more information

Indeed, if I run docker compose --project-directory ... I get the same output as the CLI, which seems to confirm the cause of the error during nhost up:

Error: unknown flag: --project-directory
See 'podman --help

[dbarrosop]

Could you try if installing podman-compose fixes it?

[Herohtar]

I already have podman-compose installed. It does not make a difference because podman-compose is a separate script/tool and does not add a compose command to podman (ie, podman compose is still invalid)

[dbarrosop]

Would you mind testing one of the artifacts from here? (scroll to the bottom)

https://github.com/nhost/cli/actions/runs/5287387814?pr=729

[Herohtar]

$ cli up
Setting up Nhost development environment...
Starting Nhost development environment...
podman-compose version: 1.0.6
usage: podman-compose [-h] [-v] [--in-pod in_pod] [--pod-args pod_args]
                      [--env-file env_file] [-f file] [-p PROJECT_NAME]
                      [--podman-path PODMAN_PATH] [--podman-args args]
                      [--podman-pull-args args] [--podman-push-args args]
                      [--podman-build-args args] [--podman-inspect-args args]
                      [--podman-run-args args] [--podman-start-args args]
                      [--podman-stop-args args] [--podman-rm-args args]
                      [--podman-volume-args args] [--no-ansi] [--no-cleanup]
                      [--dry-run]
                      {help,version,wait,systemd,pull,push,build,up,down,ps,run,exec,start,stop,restart,logs,config,port,pause,unpause,kill}
                      ...
podman-compose: error: argument command: invalid choice: '/nhost-test' (choose from 'help', 'version', 'wait', 'systemd', 'pull', 'push', 'build', 'up', 'down', 'ps', 'run', 'exec', 'start', 'stop', 'restart', 'logs', 'config', 'port', 'pause', 'unpause', 'kill')
failed to start Nhost development environment: failed to start docker compose: exit status 2

[dbarrosop]

Apologies for the late response. It is unfortunate that podman-compose isn't compatible with docker-compose. I guess the easiest thing to do would be to fallback to docker-compose with podman. Thoughts?

[Herohtar]

I believe Podman officially supports docker-compose, so going through that should be fine.

[awidjaja]

I believe Podman officially supports docker-compose, so going through that should be fine.

Installing docker-compose doesn't solve the issue because it is already deprecated by docker.
Docker expect a separate plugin (docker-cli-compose) installed and then it will be used by the docker compose. command.

The need here is to launch nhost containers locally using podman - so nhost up command should detect if podman-compose is installed and use it instead. A better option for podman is to also provide the kubernetes yaml format because podman can launch containers inside a pod using podman play kube command.

[dbarrosop]

so nhost up command should detect if podman-compose is installed and use it instead.

The problem is that podman-compose isn't compatible with docker-compose so it requires an extra effort to handle. While this may be fine, this isn't a priority for us right now. If someone wants to contribute it that'd be great though.

[awidjaja]

May I know what argument was use in your test above for podman-compose?

According to this article, podman-compose is compatible with docker-compose.yml without any change.

podman-compose up -d -f .nhost/docker-compose.yml

[Herohtar]

I think the issue is that the Docker command compose (docker compose, which is not docker-compose) has some flags that aren't supported by podman-compose. The test simply changed the command to run podman-compose without changing any of the arguments.

[dbarrosop]

The test simply changed the command to run podman-compose without changing any of the arguments

Correct, it was just a dummy change to see if it would work. You can see it here + the needed arguments here:

https://github.com/nhost/cli/pull/729/files

[awidjaja]

Thanks both for clarifying. It's an issue with the --project-directory cli parameter that is not used in podman-compose.

According to this docker compose cli reference, that parameter is for specific case where multiple docker-compose.yml files that reside is different directories. In my understanding, nhost generate only a single docker-compose.yml file inside .nhost sub-directory.

My suggestion on how to make it work for podman-compose:

Use docker version command to check whether podman is used, and in that case use podman-compose up instead of docker compose up without the --project-directory argument , instead include the working directory in the -f argument. (in the test example, change from: dc.filepath to dc.workingDir+"/"+dc.filepath

$ docker version
Client:       Podman Engine
Version:      4.5.1
API Version:  4.5.1
Go Version:   go1.18.10
Built:        Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
OS/Arch:      linux/amd64

Server:       Podman Engine
Version:      4.5.0
API Version:  4.5.0
Go Version:   go1.19.7
Built:        Fri Apr 14 15:42:56 2023
OS/Arch:      linux/amd64

# or alternatively use `which podman-compose` to check if it's installed.

$ which podman-compose
/usr/local/bin/podman-compose

# Result of nhost up for docker compose
docker compose up -f ~/.nhost/docker-compose.yml

# Result of nhost up for podman
podman-compose up -f ~/.nhost/docker-compose.yml

[dbarrosop]

Removing --project-directory isn't as simple as just changing the path to the compose file, it has an implication on mounted volumes so those would most likely to be fixed which might not be as trivial. For instance:

$ docker compose -f .nhost/docker-compose.yaml up
[+] Running 3/0
 ✔ Network nhost_default                  Created                                                                                                                                                                          0.0s
 ✔ Volume "nhost_root_node_modules"       Created                                                                                                                                                                          0.0s
 ✔ Volume "nhost_functions_node_modules"  Created                                                                                                                                                                          0.0s
 ⠋ Container nhost-minio-1                Creating                                                                                                                                                                         0.0s
 ⠋ Container nhost-dashboard-1            Creating                                                                                                                                                                         0.0s
 ⠋ Container nhost-mailhog-1              Creating                                                                                                                                                                         0.0s
 ⠋ Container nhost-functions-1            Creating                                                                                                                                                                         0.0s
 ⠋ Container nhost-postgres-1             Creating                                                                                                                                                                         0.0s
 ⠋ Container nhost-traefik-1              Creating                                                                                                                                                                         0.0s
Error response from daemon: invalid mount config for type "bind": bind source path does not exist: /Users/dbarroso/workspace/project/.nhost/.nhost/data/nogit/minio

Notice .nhost/.nhost. With --project-directory instead the path points correctly to /Users/dbarroso/workspace/project/.nhost/data/nogit/minio. I think the issue is that -f changes the working directory while --project-directory doesn't.