Performance extensions. HPC features for Podman

Extensions that turn Podman into an HPC-ready runtime with Sarus-suite. Annotation-driven. Fully static binaries. Works on any Linux node.

Why it matters

• Accelerators on demand: Enable accelerated libraries, MPS, extra mounts, env tweaks — per container — via annotations.
• Cluster-friendly: Static builds = zero runtime deps. Drop the binaries onto heterogeneous systems.
• Least surprise: Control hook execution from the Sarus EDF via annotation conditions match. No image changes needed.

Hooks

• Precreate Container Edits (pce_hook) Reads container config from stdin, applies env + mount edits from PCE_INPUT, writes updated config to stdout. Use at createContainer.

• Refresh loader cache (ldcache_hook) On prestart, runs ldconfig -v -r <rootfs> (override with LDCONFIG_PATH).

• NVIDIA MPS bootstrap (mps_hook) Starts nvidia-cuda-mps-control -d, checks per-UID server, returns helpful exit codes.

Build

Fast:

cargo build --release

Portable (recommended): static musl builds via devcontainer

devcontainer up --workspace-folder .
devcontainer exec --workspace-folder . cargo build --release

Needs "devcontainer cli"

Configure (OCI hook schema)

Example: ldconfig at prestart

{
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "hook": {
    "path": "/opt/hooks/ldcache_hook",
    "env": ["LDCONFIG_PATH=/sbin/ldconfig"]
  },
  "when": { "annotations": { "ldcache.enable": "true" } },
  "stages": ["prestart"]
}

Example: PCE at precreate stage

{
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "hook": {
    "path": "/opt/hooks/pce_hook",
    "env": ["PCE_INPUT=/etc/hooks/pce-input.json"]
  },
  "when": {
    "always": false,
    "annotations": { "pce.enable": "^true$" }
  },  "stages": ["precreate"]
}

Tests

bats test