Image mode for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with Podman

Learning path | 8 resources | 1 hr and 15 mins | Published on September 23, 2025

Learn how to create, update, and manage a custom, bootable Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) container image with Podman. 

No-cost RHEL for Developers subscription

  1. Overview: Image mode for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with Podman
  2. Workstation preparation Page | 15 mins
  3. Create the container image definition and user files Page | 10 mins
  4. Build the custom image Page | 15 mins
  5. Build a disk image Page | 5 mins
  6. Deploy and verify the disk image Page | 10 mins
  7. Update hosts running image mode for RHEL Page | 10 mins
  8. Perform a system rollback Page | 10 mins

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Build the custom image

September 23, 2025
Sean Merrow
Related topics:
ContainersDeveloper ToolsLinux
Related products:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Featured image for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Next, we’ll build the container image based on RHEL 9 bootc and with the application software installed.

In this lesson, you will:

  • Build the container image based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9 bootc and with the application software installed.

Build your custom image

With the container definition and config files created, we can build the custom image. 

# Build the initial image
$ podman build -f rhel9-httpd-v3.txt -t quay.io/seanmerrow/rhel9-httpd:v3 .

When the image build is complete, you can view its details. Below you can see that it is a bootc image.

# Inspect the new image and verify it is a bootc image
$ podman image inspect quay.io/seanmerrow/rhel9-httpd:v3 | grep com.redhat.component
                    "com.redhat.component": "rhel-bootc-component",
               "com.redhat.component": "rhel-bootc-component",
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Create the container image definition and user files
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Build a disk image