How do I replicate a docker macvlan network with podman?

Question

I have a working docker implementation on a fedora workstation that I use to host a Unifi Network Controller application. I use a macvlan to assign a static IP to the controller. The docker network command to create the macvlan is:

docker network create -d macvlan -o parent=enp8s0  --subnet 192.168.110.0/24 --gateway 192.168.110.1 --ip-range 192.168.110.224/27 --aux-address 'host=192.168.110.225' unifinet

The container where the controller runs is assigned a static ip:

docker run --rm --init --network unifinet --ip 192.168.110.226 ....

I would like to implement this using podman as a replacement. Is there a useful online tutorial that explains how to use the implementation of CNI used by podman? Especially the macvlan plugin? I cannot decide if I should use the static IPAM plugin or the local-host IPAM plugin.

Brent Baude's Leasing Routable IP addresses with Podman containers is a good start but is focused on using the dhcp IPAM plugin.

thank you

Answer 1

I see you have a solution that works for you, but I would have suggested using the host-local IPAM plugin instead, rather than static (which requires you to explicitly allocate addresses). The corresponding configuration might look something like this:

{
  "cniVersion": "0.3.0",
  "name": "unifinet",
  "plugins": [
    {
      "type": "macvlan",
      "mode": "bridge",
      "master": "eth0",
      "ipam": {
        "type": "host-local",
        "ranges": [
          [{
            "subnet": "192.168.110.0/24",
            "rangeStart": "192.168.110.226",
            "rangeEnd": "192.168.110.255",
            "gateway": "192.168.110.1"
          }]
        ],
        "routes": [
          {"dst": "0.0.0.0/0"}
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

Just like your original docker network create command, this will allocate addresses on the 192.168.110.0/24 network from the 192.168.110.224/27 range (I've actually specified a range start of 192.168.110.226, which will avoid allocating your 192.168.110.225 address that you've reserved with --aux-address).

---

You can start a container with a specific ip using the --ip argument to podman run. Given the network defined above, we could run:

podman run --net unifinet --ip 192.168.110.230 ...