How to install Podman on Ubuntu 22.04 step by step

Podman is a modern al­ter­na­tive to Docker that lets you run con­tain­ers without a central daemon process. This makes Podman more secure, which is es­pe­cial­ly ben­e­fi­cial for rootless con­tain­ers. You can install Podman on Ubuntu 22.04 in just a few steps.

What is Podman and what is it used for?

Podman (short for Pod Manager) is an open-source container engine that lets you manage con­tain­ers and pods without the need for a con­tin­u­ous­ly running back­ground service. Unlike Docker, Podman doesn’t require a daemon — it interacts directly with con­tain­ers and runs them in the user context. The engine is commonly used in secure en­vi­ron­ments and on systems where secure and flexible container op­er­a­tions are needed.

Podman offers several ad­van­tages. For one, the engine supports rootless con­tain­ers, allowing users to run con­tain­ers without root priv­i­leges, which improves security. Since the CLI commands are largely identical to familiar Docker commands, longtime Docker users can easily make the switch. Podman also supports Ku­ber­netes-native concepts like pods and YAML con­fig­u­ra­tions.

What are the pre­req­ui­sites for in­stal­la­tion?

Before in­stalling Podman on Ubuntu, make sure you meet the following pre­req­ui­sites:

• An up-to-date Ubuntu system: Make sure your Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion is fully up to date.
• Terminal access with sudo priv­i­leges: In­stalling Podman on Ubuntu requires ad­min­is­tra­tive rights.
• At least 2 GB of free storage space: You will need at least 2 GB of storage space to download and install the packages, as well as for future container images.
• Internet con­nec­tion: You will also need a stable internet con­nec­tion since Podman is installed from the official Ubuntu repos­i­to­ries or al­ter­na­tive sources.

How to install Podman on Ubuntu 22.04

In­stalling Podman is straight­for­ward and can be completed with just a few commands. Follow the steps outlined below.

Step 1: Update the system

Before in­stalling new packages, you should update your system to the latest version. This ensures that all de­pen­den­cies are up to date.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

This command updates your package lists and installs the latest updates for your system.

Step 2: Install Podman

Now you can proceed with in­stalling Podman on Ubuntu 22.04. Since Ubuntu includes Podman in its official repos­i­to­ries, you can install it using the package manager:

sudo apt install podman -y

This command downloads Podman and all required de­pen­den­cies and installs them on your system.

Step 3: Check the version

Once the in­stal­la­tion is complete, you can check the installed version of Podman to confirm that the engine is ready to use:

podman --version

If Podman was installed suc­cess­ful­ly, the output should show the installed version number.

Close

How to verify the in­stal­la­tion

To check that Podman is working properly on your system, try running a container. Use the simple “hello-world” container to test it:

podman run --rm hello-world

If all goes well, you should see a welcome message con­firm­ing that Podman is running suc­cess­ful­ly.

Close

You can also check your container en­vi­ron­ment anytime with the following command:

podman info

This command provides detailed in­for­ma­tion on the Podman in­stal­la­tion, supported storage backends, and other con­fig­u­ra­tion details. If you run into issues, you can use podman system reset to fully reset the Podman con­fig­u­ra­tion.