Add container routing note

Signed-off-by: Anatoli Nicolae <[email protected]>

notes/access-host-from-podman-container.md

@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+---
+title: Accessing Host from Podman Containers
+tags:
+  - postgres
+  - database
+  - podman
+  - docker
+  - network
+emoji: 🐘
+queries:
+  - access host fom container
+---
+
+Accessing host resources and ports from a Docker/Podman container can be done in two ways:
+- exposing the network on a host-level (using `--net host` param or similar);
+- routing through gateway.
+
+## Basic Gateway Routing
+
+While exposing host ports for the container may be an easier choice, it's better to properly isolate it and use the gateway routing instead.
+
+However, this will not work out-of-the-box as Postgres (or some other service) by default bind to localhost addesses only (`127.0.0.1, ::1`).
+
+To overcome this, you can use `pgsql.remote-access` Scope to enable remote access to the service.
+
+```bash
+cpcmd scope:set pgsql.remote 1
+```
+
+<Warning>
+
+Enabling remote access **will also impact your firewall rules** to do so, opening external access to the system.
+
+</Warning>
+
+## Better Gateway Routing
+
+In the case of containers running on localhost, allowing remote access is most likely unneccessary and will only introduce other things to worry about such as the firewall.
+
+A better solution in this case is to use the gateway routing, properly configuring target service and keeping it local.
+
+In this case, Podman will publish a network similar to `10.89.0.1/24` where `.1` will be the host.
+
+### Enabling Postgres Access
+
+The first thing we need to do is whitelist `10.89.0.1/24` network for users accessing Postgres, by editing our `pg_hba.conf` adding the following lines:
+
+```txt
+# nano /var/lib/pgsql/16/data/pg_hba.conf
+host    all             all             10.89.0.1/24            trust
+host    replication     all             10.89.0.1/24            trust
+```
+
+### Binding to Podman Network
+
+We can now add `10.89.0.1` to the list of addresses Postgres will bind to.
+
+```bash
+cpcmd scope:set cp.bootstrapper pgsql_bind_address '127.0.0.1, ::1, 10.89.0.1'
+```
+
+<Warning>
+
+**`pgsql_bind_address` requires a string**, so the value passed to the scope shoul be **a comma-separated list as a string**.
+
+</Warning>
+
+We now need to apply the changes by invoking a Postgres reconfiguration via Ansible, to write the new bind definition on the config file and restart the process, including our `pg_hba.conf` changes.
+
+```bash
+upcp -sb pgsql/install
+```
+
+After playbooks completes all actions, Podman containers will be able to access Host Postgres via:
+- `host.containers.internal:5432`
+- `host.docker.internal:5432`