Generating Kubernetes YAML from Podman

Pods / Guide 13 of 47 / Intermediate

• OSUbuntu 26.04 LTS (resolute)
• Podman5.7.0
• Runtimecrun 1.21
• Networknetavark 1.16.1
• TimeAbout 14 min
• Reviewed22 August 2026

Written against the versions above. Podman follows the distribution here rather than a vendor repository, so the version you get is the one Ubuntu shipped. The commands are stable across 5.x.

Before you start

• guide 20 and guide 21 - this guide exports the kind of pod those two build.

1. 1

   Build something worth exporting

   Two containers with different images, and a published port, so the manifest has something to say. nginx as the storefront and redis as a cache - the shape of an application rather than two sleeps.

   $podman pod create --name shop -p 8090:804194fc9eb7f981215061cd01b98e7520a5161e2cb05ce7f2806519d0ea798ad9$podman run -d --pod shop --name storefront docker.io/library/nginx:alpine25c4d3e13635bd045662db640176772de0398a3df3decf13c214b2ca3e11dfcf$podman run -d --pod shop --name cache docker.io/library/redis:alpineTrying to pull docker.io/library/redis:alpine...Getting image source signaturesCopying blob sha256:4f4fb700ef54461cfa02571ae0db9a0dc1e0cdb5577484a6d75e68dc38e8acc1Copying blob sha256:e6f31ffc071e5560b82a8685fba8214954e5721e3e49269d00958316edbe89feCopying blob sha256:0fa01b31bddd5bcc2f457623be6f36e4c5b895a832661f997bd99a200b9382c4Copying blob sha256:0fbf4c2f3ace70fd3b4d6279861e1d3ea5853bb6377323a02d0d5d0ed83b02cbCopying blob sha256:6e42bdae546bf5eeed860ec7de01b33a3b91916aa5cdde9d742808ed3a75ba61Copying blob sha256:12f303a814674bca7373b7a9eef56ff802850e99c93df05dc019e8eceada5cfbCopying blob sha256:41960ea7102b0b0dd3ad5abc29300a53a2ed7450089e1a0f087dd4450910813dCopying config sha256:00c30ddf0ef8074bbc7b7e5ea655bb6d359dc66694edd57d70fe95ce6ba531aaWriting manifest to image destination9bb2457ecddf5d356d96edd2798179880dfe20c5c5c176fba334394c0118fc1d$podman pod psPOD ID        NAME        STATUS      CREATED         INFRA ID      # OF CONTAINERS4194fc9eb7f9  shop        Running     15 seconds ago  2d5e8d85ede5  3

   Expected resultA running pod named shop with three containers.

   Success conditionTwo named containers and a published port exist in one pod.

2. 2

   Export it

   podman kube generate shop writes the pod to stdout as Kubernetes YAML. It is a genuine manifest, not a Podman-shaped approximation - apiVersion: v1, kind: Pod, a spec.containers list.

   Read what it decided:

   • Container names lost the pod prefix. storefront, not shop-storefront. In a manifest the container name only has to be unique inside the pod.
   • The command became args. nginx's entrypoint was unpacked into a list, which is what a manifest needs since there is no shell to parse it.
   • The published port became hostPort: 8090 beside containerPort: 80.
   • Two io.kubernetes.cri-o.SandboxID annotations name the infra container. A cluster ignores them; they are Podman recording where this came from.

   The comment at the top tells you the intended use - kubectl create -f. That is the actual value of this command: a pod you debugged interactively becomes the first draft of a manifest, instead of you writing YAML from memory.

   $podman kube generate shop# Save the output of this file and use kubectl create -f to import# it into Kubernetes.## Created with podman-5.7.0apiVersion: v1kind: Podmetadata:  annotations:    io.kubernetes.cri-o.SandboxID/cache: 2d5e8d85ede5aa9e0de6841ad6efb3d95f3e0fd3f22da34ca66f4dc84d781695    io.kubernetes.cri-o.SandboxID/storefront: 2d5e8d85ede5aa9e0de6841ad6efb3d95f3e0fd3f22da34ca66f4dc84d781695  creationTimestamp: "2026-08-22T11:08:24Z"  labels:    app: shop  name: shopspec:  containers:  - args:    - nginx    - -g    - daemon off;    image: docker.io/library/nginx:alpine    name: storefront    ports:    - containerPort: 80      hostPort: 8090  - args:    - redis-server    image: docker.io/library/redis:alpine    name: cache$podman kube generate shop -f shop.yaml$grep -nE '^(apiVersion|kind|  name:|  - name:|    image:)' shop.yaml5:apiVersion: v16:kind: Pod14:  name: shop21:    image: docker.io/library/nginx:alpine28:    image: docker.io/library/redis:alpine

   Expected resultA kind: Pod manifest with two containers, and the same content written to shop.yaml.

   Success conditionYou have a manifest on disk describing the pod you built by hand.

3. 3

   The one field to fix before a cluster sees it

   hostPort is the field to look at. It works, and Kubernetes discourages it: a pod that binds a port on its node can only be scheduled where that port is free, and one replica per node is the ceiling. In a cluster you would replace it with a Service.

   Podman had no choice - it is describing what you actually asked for, and what you asked for was a host port. This is the general shape of the translation: kube generate is accurate about your pod, not idiomatic about Kubernetes. Treat the output as a faithful first draft to edit, not a manifest to apply unread.

   Worth knowing what it does not emit, either: no Deployment, no Service, no resource requests you did not set, and no namespace. A bare Pod is rarely what you want in a cluster - but it is exactly what you had here.

   $head -30 shop.yaml# Save the output of this file and use kubectl create -f to import# it into Kubernetes.## Created with podman-5.7.0apiVersion: v1kind: Podmetadata:  annotations:    io.kubernetes.cri-o.SandboxID/cache: 2d5e8d85ede5aa9e0de6841ad6efb3d95f3e0fd3f22da34ca66f4dc84d781695    io.kubernetes.cri-o.SandboxID/storefront: 2d5e8d85ede5aa9e0de6841ad6efb3d95f3e0fd3f22da34ca66f4dc84d781695  creationTimestamp: "2026-08-22T11:08:25Z"  labels:    app: shop  name: shopspec:  containers:  - args:    - nginx    - -g    - daemon off;    image: docker.io/library/nginx:alpine    name: storefront    ports:    - containerPort: 80      hostPort: 8090  - args:

   Expected resultThe manifest, with hostPort: 8090 under the storefront container's ports.

   Success conditionYou can point at the field that needs changing and say why.

Troubleshooting

• Error: pod shop not found.

  Why: kube generate takes a pod or container name, and the pod may have been removed or created under a different name.

  Fix:podman pod ps for the exact name. It also accepts container names, in which case it wraps the single container in a generated pod.

• The generated YAML contains creationTimestamp and SandboxID annotations you do not want in version control.

  Why: It is a faithful dump of live state, including when that state was created.

  Fix:They are inert - a cluster ignores unknown annotations and overwrites the timestamp. Delete them by hand if the file is going into a repository.

• You wanted a Deployment, not a Pod.

  Why: kube generate describes what exists, and what exists is a pod. Podman has no Deployment to export.

  Fix:podman kube generate --type deployment shop wraps the pod spec in a Deployment. It is a template with replicas: 1 - the replica count is the subject of guide 24.

Official sources

• podman-kube-generate(1)
• Kubernetes: hostPort and why to avoid it
• Kubernetes Pod spec reference