quadlet

Example: Manage VMs with systemd using Podman Quadlet and crun-vm

Podman Quadlet is a feature that allows you to define systemd unit files for containers, such that they can be managed like any other systemd service.

crun-vm is fully compatible with Podman Quadlet, meaning that you can also launch and manage your VMs through systemd. Here's an example of how to do so:

1. Create file $HOME/.config/containers/systemd/my-vm.container with the following contents:

   [Unit]
   Description=My VM
   After=local-fs.target
   
   [Container]
   PodmanArgs=--runtime crun-vm            # make Podman use crun-vm as the runtime
   Image=quay.io/containerdisks/fedora:40  # the container image containing our VM image
   Exec=--password pass                    # optional crun-vm arguments
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target  # start on boot by default

   The options under [Container] in this unit file will effectively translate into the following podman invocation:

   $ podman run --runtime crun-vm quay.io/containerdisks/fedora:40 --password pass

2. Inform systemd of the new unit file:

   $ systemctl --user daemon-reload

   This will creates a my-vm.service file based on my-vm.container above.

3. Manage my-vm.service as you would any other service. For instance, we can start it up:

   $ systemctl --user start my-vm.service

   And then check its status:

   $ systemctl --user status my-vm.service

See this article for additional information on using Podman Quadlet, and podman-systemd.unit(5) for the reference format for Quadlet systemd units.