podman/contrib/systemd/README.md

Setting up Podman service for systemd socket activation

system-wide (podman service run as root)

The following unit file examples assume:

1. copied the service executable into /usr/local/bin
2. chcon system_u:object_r:container_runtime_exec_t:s0 /usr/local/bin/service

then:

1. copy the podman.service and podman.socket files into /etc/systemd/system
2. systemctl daemon-reload
3. systemctl enable podman.socket
4. systemctl start podman.socket
5. systemctl status podman.socket podman.service

Assuming the status messages show no errors, the libpod service is ready to respond to the APIv2 on the unix domain socket /run/podman/podman.sock

podman.service

[Unit]
Description=Podman API Service
Requires=podman.socket
After=podman.socket
Documentation=man:podman-api(1)
StartLimitIntervalSec=0

[Service]
Type=oneshot
Environment=REGISTRIES_CONFIG_PATH=/etc/containers/registries.conf
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/service
TimeoutStopSec=30
KillMode=process

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Also=podman.socket

podman.socket

[Unit]
Description=Podman API Socket
Documentation=man:podman-api(1)

[Socket]
ListenStream=%t/podman/podman.sock
SocketMode=0660

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target

user (podman service run as given user aka "rootless")

The following unit file examples assume:

1. you have a created a directory ~/bin
2. copied the service executable into ~/bin
3. chcon system_u:object_r:container_runtime_exec_t:s0 ~/bin/service

then:

1. mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
2. copy the podman.service and podman.socket files into ~/.config/systemd/user
3. systemctl --user enable podman.socket
4. systemctl --user start podman.socket
5. systemctl --user status podman.socket podman.service

Assuming the status messages show no errors, the libpod service is ready to respond to the APIv2 on the unix domain socket /run/user/$(id -u)/podman/podman.sock

podman.service

[Unit]
Description=Podman API Service
Requires=podman.socket
After=podman.socket
Documentation=man:podman-api(1)
StartLimitIntervalSec=0

[Service]
Type=oneshot
Environment=REGISTRIES_CONFIG_PATH=/etc/containers/registries.conf
ExecStart=%h/bin/service
TimeoutStopSec=30
KillMode=process

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Also=podman.socket

podman.socket

[Unit]
Description=Podman API Socket
Documentation=man:podman-api(1)

[Socket]
ListenStream=%t/podman/podman.sock
SocketMode=0660

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target