Podman and Dev Containers on macOS

These steps extend DDEV and Devcontainer — Devcontainer (Podman) when you work on macOS with Podman and Dev Containers.

You may need to install the missing krunkit package before installing Podman, and set export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///var/run/docker.sock in your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc (or export it in the terminal) before using devcontainer commands.

1. Stop and remove any Podman machines

podman machine stop 2>/dev/null && podman machine rm -f 2>/dev/null

2. Delete all Podman configuration and VM data

rm -rf ~/.config/containers ~/.local/share/containers ~/.cache/containers && rm -rf ~/Library/Containers/io.podman* 2>/dev/null || true && rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Podman* 2>/dev/null || true && rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/io.podman* 2>/dev/null || true

3. Uninstall Homebrew Podman and Podman Desktop

brew uninstall -f podman podman-desktop 2>/dev/null && brew cleanup

4. Install krunkit (Podman 5.8.0)

Podman 5.8.0 can require krunkit.

brew tap slp/krunkit && brew install krunkit && krunkit --version

5. Install Podman CLI and Podman Desktop

brew install podman && brew install --cask podman-desktop

6. Initialize a new QEMU VM for Podman (example: 8 GB RAM)

podman machine init --cpus 4 --memory 8192 --disk-size 100

7. Export a Docker-compatible socket for Dev Containers

echo 'export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///var/run/docker.sock' >> ~/.zshrc && echo 'export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///var/run/docker.sock' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.zshrc && source ~/.bashrc

8. Start the VM and list machines

podman machine stop && podman machine start && podman machine list

9. Start the project

From the repository root:

devcontainer up --workspace-folder .