podman-machine(1)

NAME
podman-machine - Manage Podman's virtual machine

SYNOPSIS
podman machine subcommand

DESCRIPTION
podman machine is a set of subcommands that manage Podman's virtual machine.

Podman on MacOS and Windows requires a virtual machine. This is because containers are Linux - containers do not run on any other OS because containers' core functionality are tied to the Linux kernel. Podman machine must be used to manage MacOS and Windows machines, but can be optionally used on Linux.

All podman machine commands are rootless only.

NOTE: The podman-machine configuration file is managed under the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/containers/podman/machine/ directory. Changing the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable while the machines are running can lead to unexpected behavior.

Podman machine behaviour can be modified via the [machine] section in the containers.conf(5) file.

Podman is based on virtual machine providers. The following table describes which providers are supported by platform. The asterisk denotes the default provider for the platform.
Platform | Provider
Linux | qemu*
MacOS | libkrun*
MacOS | applehv
Windows | wsl*
Windows | hyperv

SUBCOMMANDS
Command | Man Page | Description
cp | podman-machine-cp(1) | Securely copy contents between the host and the virtual machine
info | podman-machine-info(1) | Display machine host info
init | podman-machine-init(1) | Initialize a new virtual machine
inspect | podman-machine-inspect(1) | Inspect one or more virtual machines
list | podman-machine-list(1) | List virtual machines
os | podman-machine-os(1) | Manage a Podman virtual machine's OS
reset | podman-machine-reset(1) | Reset Podman machines and environment
rm | podman-machine-rm(1) | Remove a virtual machine
set | podman-machine-set(1) | Set a virtual machine setting
ssh | podman-machine-ssh(1) | SSH into a virtual machine
start | podman-machine-start(1) | Start a virtual machine
stop | podman-machine-stop(1) | Stop a virtual machine

SEE ALSO
podman(1), podman-machine-cp(1), podman-machine-info(1), podman-machine-init(1), podman-machine-list(1), podman-machine-os(1), podman-machine-rm(1), podman-machine-ssh(1), podman-machine-start(1), podman-machine-stop(1), podman-machine-inspect(1), podman-machine-reset(1), containers.conf(5)

  Troubleshooting
See podman-troubleshooting(7) for solutions to common issues.

HISTORY
March 2021, Originally compiled by Ashley Cui acui@redhat.com ⟨mailto:acui@redhat.com⟩