podman-machine

Manage virtual machines for Podman

TLDR

Initialize a new machine with custom resources

$ podman machine init --cpus [4] --memory [4096] --disk-size [50]

Initialize and start immediately

$ podman machine init --now

Start machine

$ podman machine start

List machines

$ podman machine list

SSH into machine

$ podman machine ssh

Inspect machine details as JSON

$ podman machine inspect

Modify resources on a stopped machine

$ podman machine set --cpus [8] --memory [8192]

Remove machine

$ podman machine rm

SYNOPSIS

podman machine command [options]

podman machine manages Linux virtual machines for running Podman on macOS and Windows. Since containers require a Linux kernel, this command creates and manages a VM that runs the Podman service.The VM provider is selected automatically based on the platform: Apple Hypervisor on macOS, WSL or Hyper-V on Windows, and QEMU on Linux. Use `--provider` at init time to override. The `set` subcommand allows modifying CPU, memory, and disk on stopped machines.

PARAMETERS

init

Initialize a new virtual machine.

start

Start a virtual machine.

stop

Stop a virtual machine.

list

List virtual machines.

ssh

SSH into a virtual machine.

inspect

Display machine configuration as JSON.

set

Modify settings on a stopped machine (CPUs, memory, disk, rootful).

Remove a virtual machine.

info

Display machine host info (architecture, OS, VM provider).

reset

Remove all machines, configurations, and cached images.

os apply|upgrade

Manage the VM operating system image.

--cpus n

Number of CPUs (init, set).

--memory mb

Memory in MiB (init, set).

--disk-size gb

Disk size in GiB (init, set — expand only).

--rootful

Prefer rootful container execution (init, set).

--now

Start machine immediately after init.

--volume src:dst

Mount a host directory into the VM (init).

CAVEATS

All machine commands are rootless only. The `set` subcommand requires the machine to be stopped. Disk size can only be expanded, not shrunk. Some `set` options (--cpus, --memory, --disk-size) are QEMU-only.