Life's random bits By b1thunt3r (aka Ishan Jain)…
Podman on Windows

Podman on Windows

Ishan jain
Docker (and Docker Desktop) is not the only way to run containers on Windows. One of the alternatives that have emerged in later years is Podman. Today Podman provides almost full compatibility with docker.

On Windows, each Podman machine is backed by a virtualized Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSLv2) distribution. Once installed, the podman command can be run directly from your Windows PowerShell (or CMD) prompt, where it remotely communicates with the podman service running in the WSL environment. Alternatively, you can access Podman directly from the WSL instance if you prefer a Linux prompt and Linux tooling.

See the Podman for Windows guide for setup and usage instructions.

Install with WinGet

winget install -e RedHat.Podman-Desktop winget install -e RedHat.Podman

Podman Desktop

Podman Desktop is an innovative desktop tool that brings the power of containers and Kubernetes to your computer, making it easy to create, manage, and run containerized applications visually. Intuitive interfaces and smart integration with the most important container technologies, support for Mac, Windows and Linux, Podman Desktop helps you to use containers, pods and Kubernetes on your local machine.

Podman Compose

Podman Compose is a tool that facilitates the deployment of interdependent containers by grouping all the necessary instructions in a single YAML file. Podman Compose is designed to offer full compatibility with Docker Compose YAML files, with added functionalities that handle Podman's rootless and daemonless nature.

With Podman Desktop, you can install a Compose engine and manage multi-container applications defined in Compose files.

Volume Mounts

Podman on Windows (under WSL) provides three ways for mounting volumes:

Windows Style Paths:

podman run --rm -v c:\Users\User\myfolder:/myfolder ubi8-micro ls /myfolder

Unixy Windows Paths:

podman run --rm -v /mnt/c/Users/User/myfolder:/myfolder ubi8-micro ls /myfolder

Linux paths local to the WSL filesystem:

podman run --rm -v /var/myfolder:/myfolder ubi-micro ls /myfolder

Resouces