podman-image-scp(1)

NAME
podman-image-scp - Securely copy an image from one host to another

SYNOPSIS
podman image scp [options] name[:tag]

DESCRIPTION
podman image scp copies container images between hosts on a network. This command can copy images to the remote host or from the remote host as well as between two remote hosts. Note: :: is used to specify the image name depending on Podman is saving or loading. Images can also be transferred from rootful to rootless storage on the same machine without using sshd. This feature is not supported on the remote client, including Mac and Windows (excluding WSL2) machines.

This is not a direct storage-to-storage copy. The image is saved to an archive (using podman save), the archive file is transferred (e.g., over SSH), and then loaded on the destination. As a result, digest references to the original compressed blobs are not preserved (e.g., podman pull image@digest followed by podman image scp and then inspecting by that digest may not work). For regular workflows, using a registry (push from source, pull on destination) is often preferable.

podman image scp [GLOBAL OPTIONS]

podman image scp [OPTIONS] NAME[:TAG] [HOSTNAME::]

podman image scp [OPTIONS] [HOSTNAME::]IMAGENAME

podman image scp [OPTIONS] [HOSTNAME::]IMAGENAME [HOSTNAME::]

OPTIONS

  --format=format
Format passed to podman save when creating the transfer archive. Allowed values are oci-archive and docker-archive. If omitted, podman save uses its default (docker-archive).

Only the oci-archive and docker-archive archive (tar) formats are supported. Directory formats (oci-dir, docker-dir) are not supported because the transfer sends a single file; the remote path does not support directory layouts.

  --help, -h
Print usage statement

  --quiet, -q
Suppress the output

EXAMPLES
Copy specified image to local storage:
    $ podman image scp alpine
    Loaded image: docker.io/library/alpine:latest

Copy specified image from local storage to remote connection:
    $ podman image scp alpine Fedora::/home/charliedoern/Documents/alpine
    Getting image source signatures
    Copying blob 72e830a4dff5 done
    Copying config 85f9dc67c7 done
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
    Loaded image: docker.io/library/alpine:latest

Copy specified image from remote connection to remote connection:
    $ podman image scp Fedora::alpine RHEL::
    Loaded image: docker.io/library/alpine:latest

Copy specified image via ssh to local storage:
    $ podman image scp charliedoern@192.168.68.126:22/run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock::alpine
    WARN[0000] Unknown connection name given. Please use system connection add to specify the default remote socket location
    Getting image source signatures
    Copying blob 9450ef9feb15 [--------------------------------------] 0.0b / 0.0b
    Copying config 1f97f0559c done
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
    Loaded image: docker.io/library/alpine:latest

Copy specified image from root account to user accounts local storage:
    $ sudo podman image scp root@localhost::alpine username@localhost::
    Copying blob e2eb06d8af82 done
    Copying config 696d33ca15 done
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
    Getting image source signatures
    Copying blob 5eb901baf107 skipped: already exists
    Copying config 696d33ca15 done
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
    Loaded image: docker.io/library/alpine:latest

Copy specified image from root account to local storage:
    $ sudo podman image scp root@localhost::alpine
    Copying blob e2eb06d8af82 done
    Copying config 696d33ca15 done
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
    Getting image source signatures
    Copying blob 5eb901baf107
    Copying config 696d33ca15 done
    Writing manifest to image destination
    Storing signatures
    Loaded image: docker.io/library/alpine:latest

Copy image to rootful storage with OCI archive format:
    $ podman image scp --format oci-archive quay.io/fedora/fedora:43 root@localhost::

Copy image to remote host (uses default format when --format is omitted):
    $ podman image scp alpine root@myserver::

SEE ALSO
podman(1), podman-load(1), podman-save(1), podman-remote(1), podman-system-connection-add(1), containers.conf(5), containers-transports(5)

HISTORY
July 2021, Originally written by Charlie Doern cdoern@redhat.com ⟨mailto:cdoern@redhat.com⟩