Podman containers in Apple Container Machine 1.0

[afbjorklund]

This is a follow-up from last year, about running Podman in Apple Container:

• Running Podman containers in Apple Container VM #27278

With the new Apple Container 1.0.0, the syntax to do so has become easier:

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2026/389/

• container machine create <image>

• alias coma='container machine run'

https://github.com/apple/container/releases/tag/1.0.0

---

You can use Podman as a Container Machine.

This was the Containerfile that I used:

FROM fedora

RUN dnf install -y systemd

ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/lib/systemd/systemd"]
STOPSIGNAL SIGRTMIN+3

RUN dnf install -y podman

RUN systemctl enable podman.socket
VOLUME /var/lib/podman

Currently though, it is missing socket mounts.

But it does boot in less than a second...

$ coma --root podman --remote version
Client:        Podman Engine
Version:       5.8.3
API Version:   5.8.3
Go Version:    go1.26.4-X:nodwarf5
Git Commit:    93dbfd0d86ee57f8f91801f61ce57dd880a4725f
Built:         Fri Jun 12 00:00:00 2026
Build Origin:  Fedora Project
OS/Arch:       linux/arm64

Server:       Podman Engine
Version:      5.8.3
API Version:  5.8.3
Go Version:   go1.26.4-X:nodwarf5
Git Commit:   93dbfd0d86ee57f8f91801f61ce57dd880a4725f
Built:        Fri Jun 12 00:00:00 2026
OS/Arch:      linux/arm64

---

A simple workaround for the missing socket is to use SSH:

RUN dnf install -y openssh-server

RUN sed -e 's/#PasswordAuthentication yes/PasswordAuthentication no/' -i /etc/ssh/sshd_config
RUN systemctl enable sshd

Since the home directory is mounted, it is easy to add keys:

# cp /Users/afb/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub /root/.ssh/authorized_keys

And then you add the container machine as a connection:

$ podman system connection add container ssh://root@podman.container --identity /Users/afb/.ssh/id_ed25519

The IP changes each boot, so you want to be using the DNS.

---

And now you can access it from the host, as well as from the guest.

$ podman --connection=container version
Client:        Podman Engine
Version:       6.0.0
API Version:   6.0.0
Go Version:    go1.26.4
Built:         Wed Jun 24 16:28:09 2026
Build Origin:  brew
OS/Arch:       darwin/arm64

Server:       Podman Engine
Version:      5.8.3
API Version:  5.8.3
Go Version:   go1.26.4-X:nodwarf5
Git Commit:   93dbfd0d86ee57f8f91801f61ce57dd880a4725f
Built:        Fri Jun 12 02:00:00 2026
OS/Arch:      linux/arm64

By default, it uses half of your CPU and half of your RAM memory:

$ nproc
8
$ free -h
               total        used        free      cached         app       wired
Mem:          16.0Gi       5.6Gi      89.0Mi      10.3Gi       4.1Gi     946.0Mi
Swap:           0.0B        0.0B        0.0B
$ container machine ls
NAME    CREATED              IP              CPUS  MEMORY  DISK  STATE    DEFAULT
podman  2026-07-02 08:44:50  192.168.105.45  4     8G      770M  running  *