1장. Introduction to containers

Linux containers have emerged as a key open source application packaging and delivery technology, combining lightweight application isolation with the flexibility of image-based deployment methods. Red Hat Enterprise Linux implements Linux containers using core technologies such as:

These technologies reduce the potential for security exploits and provide you with an environment for producing and running enterprise-quality containers.

Red Hat OpenShift provides powerful command-line and Web UI tools for building, managing, and running containers in units referred to as pods. Red Hat allows you to build and manage individual containers and container images outside of OpenShift. This guide describes the tools provided to perform those tasks that run directly on Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems.

Unlike other container tools implementations, the tools described here do not center around the monolithic Docker container engine and docker command. Instead, Red Hat provides a set of command-line tools that can operate without a container engine. These include:

Besides these tools, you can also use Podman Desktop, that is, a GUI-based application for container management. Podman Desktop is built on top of Podman, making it easy to create, manage, and run containerized applications visually.

Because these tools are compatible with the Open Container Initiative (OCI), they can be used to manage the same Linux containers that are produced and managed by Docker and other OCI-compatible container engines. However, they are especially suited to run directly on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, in single-node use cases.

For a multi-node container platform, see OpenShift and Using the CRI-O Container Engine for details.