podman-container-diff(1)

💅 podman-container-diff(1) — General Commands Manual, but make it cute

okay bestie so this is podman-container-diff, and it's genuinely one of my faves because it lets you spill the tea on what's going on inside a container's filesystem 👀✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

podman-container-diff — inspect changes on a container's filesystem. that's it, that's the vibe 🫶

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

podman container diff [options] container [container]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the deal: this command displays changes on a container's filesystem. iconic. basically it's a glow-up check ✨

The container gets compared to its parent layer — or, if you're feeling generous and hand over a second argument, it compares against that one instead. two containers, one diff, main character energy fr fr 💅

Every line of output gets prefixed with a lil symbol so you know exactly what went down. here's the decoder ring 🔮:

• A — a file or directory was added 🎀 (new drop, we love to see it)
• D — a file or directory was deleted 😭 (gone, reduced to atoms)
• C — a file or directory was changed 🦋 (glow-up arc, but make it filesystem)

no cap, that's the whole legend. memorise it, it's giving flashcards.

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

• --format — alters the output into a different format. and the only valid format for podman container diff is json. that's the whole menu, bestie, don't try anything else 🙈
• --latest, -l — instead of giving a container name or ID, just use the last created container. lowkey convenient, highkey chaotic. ⚠️ Note: the last started container can be from other users of Podman on the host machine. so yeah, it might not be yours. vibe check accordingly 💀

🚨 also important: this option is not available with the remote Podman client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines. so if that's you, sorry bestie, no --latest for you 😭

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

first up, the classic — diff a container against its parent layer:

# podman container diff container1
C /usr
C /usr/local
C /usr/local/bin
A /usr/local/bin/docker-entrypoint.sh

look at that. docker-entrypoint.sh was added, everything else just changed. slay 🎀

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now let's get fancy and diff two containers with json output:

$ podman container diff --format json container1 container2
{
     "added": [
          "/test"
     ]
}

clean. structured. json-pilled. "/test" was added and the output is obsessed with telling you about it ✨

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and finally, the --latest shortcut:

$ podman container diff --latest
C /etc

just C /etc. something in /etc changed. mysterious. iconic. we move 💅

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💖 SEE ALSO 💖

• podman(1)
• podman-container(1)

go read those too, they're the supporting cast and they ate 🫶

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📜 HISTORY 📜

July 2021 — originally compiled by Paul Holzinger <pholzing@redhat.com> 💌

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🌸 thanks for reading, go diff something and feel powerful 🦋

podman-container-diff(1) — part of the General Commands Manual, dated July 2021. that's the source and the version and the date all wrapped up in a lil bow 🎀 mwah, bye!! 💖✨