Linux - Can we get a standalone podman-remote package

[cavanaug]

Additional Info

• I am using Windows Subsystem for Linux

Output of brew config

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 4.6.16-49-g9811ce7
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: 9811ce75e505a7151294ec08b25c5207506f3941
Last commit: 8 hours ago
Branch: main
Core tap JSON: 08 Oct 14:39 UTC
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []
HOMEBREW_DISPLAY: :0
HOMEBREW_EDITOR: nvim
HOMEBREW_FORBID_PACKAGES_FROM_PATHS: set
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 20
HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_CLEANUP: set
HOMEBREW_SORBET_RUNTIME: set
Homebrew Ruby: 3.4.7 => /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/3.4.7/bin/ruby
CPU: 20-core 64-bit alderlake
Clang: N/A
Git: 2.51.0 => /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/git
Curl: 8.14.1 => /bin/curl
Kernel: Linux 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64 GNU/Linux
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) (trixie)
WSL: 2 (Microsoft Store)
Host glibc: 2.41
Host libstdc++: 6.0.33
/usr/bin/gcc: 14.2.0
/usr/bin/ruby: N/A
glibc: N/A
gcc@12: N/A
gcc: N/A
xorg: N/A

Output of brew doctor

Your system is ready to brew.

Description of issue

Can we get a standalone podman-remote package?

The use case here is that we need a way to have a modern podman-remote version that matches a remote podman instance (typically podman-desktop on windows via wsl). The typical distro provided podman-remote version is often quite old and does not support matching capabilities in the remote instance.

Im not familiar with creating formulae so Im not really able to create this myself.

[SMillerDev]

Im not familiar with creating formulae so Im not really able to create this myself.

https://docs.brew.sh/Adding-Software-to-Homebrew has all the help you need to get started, and don't hesitate to create a post here if you can't figure something out.

[cavanaug]

So I looked a bit more into this. The entire podman brew package is a little unusual. For mac, its basically a podman-remote installation that depends on podman-desktop cask. Thats sort of what Im looking for in wsl, a podman-remote connecting to an already existing podman desktop installation.

Near as I can tell, the podman brew package itself should be redone in one of two ways.

Option 1 - podman package is a full install of podman

• This would make it such that podman as a package doesnt exist anymore for mac
• Make a podman-remote that is usable for mac and linux, but relies on a pre-existing podman desktop installation. It installs itself as the "podman" command with "podman-remote" available as well.

Option 2 - podman package is in essence podman-remote for linux & mac

• This would only install podman-remote on mac/linux and relies on a pre-existing podman desktop installation. It installs itself as the "podman" command with "podman-remote" available as well.
• Make a podman-full that is only available to linux and installs a full podman instance. This is similar to what podman does today on linux.

Im not sure who the podman maintainer is. Love to hear their thoughts on this.

[gromgit]

For mac, its basically a podman-remote installation that depends on podman-desktop cask.

I don't using Podman myself, but that's not what I'm seeing from the existing macOS caveat:

        In order to run containers locally, podman depends on a Linux kernel.
        One can be started manually using `podman machine` from this package.
        To start a podman VM automatically at login, also install the cask
        "podman-desktop".

and the podman-machine man page. If I'm reading all that correctly, the macOS podman formula is fully capable of hosting pods, just as VMs rather than (Linux) containers. The only obvious thing the Linux version can do that the macOS can't is auto-start containers on login--that's when you'd use macOS Podman Desktop.

[cavanaug]

In looking at https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/7a93f2b4d884e2952b0e07b2986360ae3ce98f5d/Formula/p/podman.rb it looks like all the conditionals for mac are related to podman-remote. The install even installs podman-remote as podman and makes a symlink from podman-remote to podman. I dunno, Im not an expert here...