creating files in contaiers with podman api

[gmankab]

my goal is to create a simple python function that can write any text to file in podman container

like this:

async def create_file(
    content: str = 'hello world',
    path: str = 'file.txt',
):
    pass

in podman api docs i foud two methods:

• /libpod/containers/{name}/archive
• /libpod/exec/{id}/start

fist one requires tar archive to be created, and i found it too overcomplicated, so i think i should use second one

i wrote a helper function that will execute commands

async def exec(
    command: list[str]
):
    transport = httpx.AsyncHTTPTransport(uds='/run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock')
    async with httpx.AsyncClient(transport=transport) as client:
        resp = await client.post(
            url='http://localhost/v5.0.0/libpod/containers/mycontainer/exec',
            json={
                'cmd': command,
                'attachstdout': True,
                'attachstderr': True,
                'attachstdin': True,
            },
        )
        exec_id = resp.json()['Id']
        resp = await client.post(
            url=f'http://localhost/v5.0.0/libpod/exec/{exec_id}/start',
            json={},
        )
        print(resp.content.decode())

here is a simplest solution i found for file creating

async def create_file(
    content: str,
    path: str,
):
    await exec(['bash', '-c', f'echo {content} > {path}'])

asyncio.run(create_file('hello world', 'file.txt'))

it can be broken easily, for example it can't write greater-than sign

asyncio.run(create_file('>', 'file.txt'))
# syntax error near unexpected token `>'

a bit better solution

async def create_file(
    content: str,
    path: str,
):
    writer = f'''
cat <<EOF > {path}
{content}
EOF
'''
    await exec(['bash', '-c', writer])

it can write greater-than sign, but brokes if writing 'EOF'

asyncio.run(create_file('EOF', 'file.txt'))
# EOF: command not found

i need an unbrearkable way to write anyting, and i should avoid using bash, so i wrote this unbrerakable code with subprocess lib

async def create_file(
    content: str,
    path: str,
):
    subprocess.run(
        ['tee', path],
        input=content,
        text=True,
    )


asyncio.run(create_file('> < EOF """ ANYTHING', 'file.txt'))

this code requres content to be passed to input argument

but unforcunately, i can't get working code that does same thing with podman api

can anybody write working code example for me?

i use fedora 41 and podman 5.3.2

[baude]

have you explored https://github.com/containers/podman-py ? that might also be a good place to transfer this conversation

[gmankab]

have you explored https://github.com/containers/podman-py ? that might also be a good place to transfer this conversation

i tried podman-py, and unfortunately it does not support async

but if you can get working code for creating a file with podman-py, it can be really useful for me