podman-init(1) General Commands Manual podman-init(1)
NAME
podman-init - Initialize one or more containers
SYNOPSIS
podman init [options] container [container...]
podman container init [options] container [container...]
DESCRIPTION
Initialize one or more containers. You may use container IDs or names
as input. Initializing a container performs all tasks necessary for
starting the container (mounting filesystems, creating an OCI spec, ini-
tializing the container network) but does not start the container. If a
container is not initialized, the podman start and podman run commands
initialize it automatically prior to starting it. This command is in-
tended to be used for inspecting a container's filesystem or OCI spec
prior to starting it. This can be used to inspect the container before
it runs, or debug why a container is failing to run.
OPTIONS
--all, -a
Initialize all containers. Containers that have already initialized (in-
cluding containers that have been started and are running) are ignored.
--latest, -l
Instead of providing the container name or ID, use the last created con-
tainer. Note: the last started container can be from other users of
Podman on the host machine. (This option is not available with the re-
mote Podman client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines)
EXAMPLE
Initialize specified container with a given ID.
podman init 35480fc9d568
Initialize specified container with a given name.
podman init test1
Initialize the latest container. (This option is not available with the
remote Podman client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) ma-
chines)
podman init --latest
SEE ALSO
podman(1), podman-start(1)
HISTORY
April 2019, Originally compiled by Matthew Heon mheon@redhat.com
⟨mailto:mheon@redhat.com⟩
podman-init(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 05:57:28 CET 2025.