microsoft / microsoft/vscode-containers
Support rootless, daemonless podman inside WSL
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- #182 by @dmchurch — closed without merging
- Dominant language
- TypeScript
- Stars
- 139
- Forks
- 87
- Avg merge
- 9h 15m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 9
Description
Since the changes to Docker's licensing, I've been looking at using Podman to run my devcontainers instead of Docker. There's a couple of wrinkles to this, however; by default Podman is daemonless, and doesn't have a running service. This is actually a benefit to running in WSL (which doesn't have systemd by default), but means that accessing it via a remote CLI requires setting up a bunch of other services.
My preferred setup would be;
- Install podman in WSL. There are old instructions (although note that the config file name has changed)
- Install nothing on the Windows side. In the above install, there's no running service, and no unix socket either.
... and have everything "just work" (ie, container and image list).
The remote-containers extension solved this by running cli commands inside WSL.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
No repository files, tests, or entry points are named. Start by locating the extension's container-runtime discovery and WSL integration, then trace how Docker or remote CLI connections are configured. Done means a rootless, daemonless Podman installation inside WSL can list containers and images without installing anything on Windows.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- docker
- Domain
- devops, operating-systems
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 28/100