Difference between --restart=always Vs having .service file restart container with Podman?

JockVSJock · 10-07-2021, 10:25 AM

Just wondering if anyone has any insight having the --restart-always command when launching a container from an image Vs creating a .service file to restart a container, say if server is rebooted?

Are there any pros or cons with either or?

Here is an example of the --restart=always command

Code:

[matt@localhost ~]$ podman run -d --name registry -p 5000:5000 -v "$(pwd)"/certs:/certs  --restart=always -e REGISTRY_HTTP_ADDR=0.0.0.0:5000 -e REGISTRY_HTTP_TLS_CERTIFICATE=/certs/domain.crt -e REGISTRY_HTTP_TLS_KEY=/certs/domain.key --privileged registry:2

Reference from this blog:

https://snyk.io/blog/privileged-docker-containers/

Vs.

Using .service file to restart a container:

https://www.tutorialworks.com/podman-systemd/

jmgibson1981 · 10-07-2021, 05:19 PM

When I was first learning Docker I had no concept of the --restart toggle so I made systemd services for each of my containers. Over my reading I found it to be more about best practices to use as few external as possible? That and in the case of --restart it will work whether or not the host uses systemd. Else you'd need to provide an init script or whatever. Thus far I have 5 dockers running on the server at any given time. The only one with a systemd service at this point just fires a 15 second countdown + notification in game then stops the minecraft server gracefully on system shutdown.