Current setup:

• one giant docker compose file
• Caddy TLS trunking
• only exposed port is Caddy

I’ve been trying out podman, and I got a new service running (seafile), and I did it via podman generate kube so I can run it w/ podman kube play. My understanding is that the “podman way” is to use quadlets, which means container, network, etc files managed by systemd, so I tried out podlet podman kube play to generate a systemd-compatible file, but it just spat out a .kube file.

Since I’m just starting out, it wouldn’t be a ton of work to convert to separate unit files, or I can continue with the .kube file way. I’m just not sure which to do.

At the end of this process, here’s what I’d like in the end:

• Caddy is the only exposed port - could block w/ firewall, but it would be nice if they worked over a hidden network
• each service works as its own unit, so I can reuse ports and whatnot - I may move services across devices eventually, and I’d rather not have to remember custom ports and instead use host names
• automatically update images - shouldn’t change the tag, just grab the latest from that tag

Is there a good reason to prefer .kube over .container et al or vice versa? Which is the “preferred” way to do this? Both are documented on the same “quadlet” doc page, which just describes the acceptable formats. I don’t think I want kubernetes anytime soon, so the only reason I went that way is because it looked similar to compose.yml and I saw a guide for it, but I’m willing to put in some work to port from that if needed (and the docs for the kube yaml file kinda sucks). I just want a way to ship around a few files so moving a service to a new device is easy. I’ll only really have like 3-4 devices (NAS, VPS, and maybe an RPi or two), and I currently only have one (NAS).

Also, is there a customary place to stick stuff like config files? I’m currently using my user’s home directory, but that’s not great long-term. I’ll rarely need to touch these, so I guess I could stick them on my NAS mount (currently /srv/nas/) next to the data (/srv/nas/<service>/). But if there’s a standard place to stick this, I’d prefer to do that.

Anyway, just looking for an opinionated workflow to follow here. I could keep going with the kube yaml file route, or I could switch to the .container route, I don’t mind either way since I’m still early in the process. I’m currently thinking of porting to the .container method to try it out, but I don’t know if that’s the “right” way or if ".kube` with a yaml config is the “right” way.