Use systemd files with rootless podman-compose

Currently (as of 6/15/2023), podman-compose must be manually installed to use version 1.0.7 (check with podman-compose -v), because pods are not used by default.

pip3 install git+https://github.com/containers/podman-compose.git

Setup

Add the rootless podman user to the systemd-journal group to watch logs.

usermod -aG systemd-journal podman

Create the systemd podman-compose unit with root permissions

sudo podman-compose systemd --action create-unit
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Change to the directory where your podman-compose file resides.

Register the project

podman-compose systemd --action register

# or with a different file name than podman-compose.yaml
podman-compose -f docker-compose.yaml systemd --action register

Enable and start the systemd service

systemctl --user enable --now 'podman-compose@project-name'

Stop & Start

systemctl --user stop 'podman-compose@project-name'
systemctl --user start 'podman-compose@project-name'

Troubleshooting

When the systemd unit is created you can use

podman pod ls

podman pod inspect pod_project-name

systemctl --user status -l podman-compose@project-name

journalctl --user -xu podman-compose@project-name