Support podman for the Docker Compose feature

Environment

• OS: Ubuntu 24.10
• Java: OpenJDK Runtime Environment GraalVM CE 23.0.1+11.1 (build 23.0.1+11-jvmci-b01)
• Podman: podman version 5.0.3
• Spring boot: 3.4.0

The problem

I have created a very quick demo project using start.spring.io and seeing the same behaviour I am seeing in my project. Error is as follows:

[INFO] --- spring-boot:3.4.0:run (default-cli) @ demo ---
[INFO] Attaching agents: []

  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/

 :: Spring Boot ::                (v3.4.0)

2024-12-07T17:57:33.159+02:00  INFO 190325 --- [demo] [           main] com.example.demo.DemoApplication         : Starting DemoApplication using Java 23.0.1 with PID 190325 (/home/philip/Downloads/demo/target/classes started by philip in /home/philip/Downloads/demo)
2024-12-07T17:57:33.162+02:00  INFO 190325 --- [demo] [           main] com.example.demo.DemoApplication         : No active profile set, falling back to 1 default profile: "default"
2024-12-07T17:57:33.261+02:00  INFO 190325 --- [demo] [           main] .s.b.d.c.l.DockerComposeLifecycleManager : Using Docker Compose file /home/philip/Downloads/demo/compose.yaml
2024-12-07T17:57:33.656+02:00 ERROR 190325 --- [demo] [           main] o.s.boot.SpringApplication               : Application run failed

org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.core.DockerOutputParseException: Failed to parse docker JSON:


	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.core.DockerJson.deserialize(DockerJson.java:81) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.core.DockerJson.deserialize(DockerJson.java:73) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.core.DockerCli$DockerCommands.getDockerComposeCommand(DockerCli.java:161) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.core.DockerCli$DockerCommands.<init>(DockerCli.java:137) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.core.DockerCli.lambda$new$0(DockerCli.java:63) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at java.base/java.util.HashMap.computeIfAbsent(HashMap.java:1229) ~[na:na]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.core.DockerCli.<init>(DockerCli.java:62) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.core.DockerCompose.get(DockerCompose.java:145) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.lifecycle.DockerComposeLifecycleManager.getDockerCompose(DockerComposeLifecycleManager.java:166) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.lifecycle.DockerComposeLifecycleManager.start(DockerComposeLifecycleManager.java:114) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.lifecycle.DockerComposeListener.onApplicationEvent(DockerComposeListener.java:53) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.lifecycle.DockerComposeListener.onApplicationEvent(DockerComposeListener.java:35) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.doInvokeListener(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:185) ~[spring-context-6.2.0.jar:6.2.0]
	at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.invokeListener(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:178) ~[spring-context-6.2.0.jar:6.2.0]
	at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:156) ~[spring-context-6.2.0.jar:6.2.0]
	at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:138) ~[spring-context-6.2.0.jar:6.2.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.context.event.EventPublishingRunListener.multicastInitialEvent(EventPublishingRunListener.java:136) ~[spring-boot-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.context.event.EventPublishingRunListener.contextLoaded(EventPublishingRunListener.java:98) ~[spring-boot-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplicationRunListeners.lambda$contextLoaded$4(SpringApplicationRunListeners.java:72) ~[spring-boot-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at java.base/java.lang.Iterable.forEach(Iterable.java:75) ~[na:na]
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplicationRunListeners.doWithListeners(SpringApplicationRunListeners.java:118) ~[spring-boot-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplicationRunListeners.doWithListeners(SpringApplicationRunListeners.java:112) ~[spring-boot-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplicationRunListeners.contextLoaded(SpringApplicationRunListeners.java:72) ~[spring-boot-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.prepareContext(SpringApplication.java:416) ~[spring-boot-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:317) ~[spring-boot-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1361) ~[spring-boot-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1350) ~[spring-boot-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	at com.example.demo.DemoApplication.main(DemoApplication.java:10) ~[classes/:na]
Caused by: com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.exc.MismatchedInputException: No content to map due to end-of-input
 at [Source: REDACTED (`StreamReadFeature.INCLUDE_SOURCE_IN_LOCATION` disabled); line: 1]
	at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.exc.MismatchedInputException.from(MismatchedInputException.java:59) ~[jackson-databind-2.18.1.jar:2.18.1]
	at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper._initForReading(ObjectMapper.java:5008) ~[jackson-databind-2.18.1.jar:2.18.1]
	at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper._readMapAndClose(ObjectMapper.java:4910) ~[jackson-databind-2.18.1.jar:2.18.1]
	at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper.readValue(ObjectMapper.java:3860) ~[jackson-databind-2.18.1.jar:2.18.1]
	at org.springframework.boot.docker.compose.core.DockerJson.deserialize(DockerJson.java:78) ~[spring-boot-docker-compose-3.4.0.jar:3.4.0]
	... 27 common frames omitted

The docker-compose file looks like:

services:
  postgres:
    image: 'postgres:latest'
    environment:
      - 'POSTGRES_DB=mydatabase'
      - 'POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret'
      - 'POSTGRES_USER=myuser'
    ports:
      - '5432'

• Running docker-compose up from the CLI starts it up with no problems
• I do have a podman aliasing dependency installed on the system so the normal docker commands work except using podman.
• Using test containers from spring boot works fine.
• Building OCI images works fine.

I'm not keen to switch from podman to docker, tho that is certainly one way to probably resolve this.

Any assistance would be appreciated

Reproduce the failure with the provided compose.yaml and Podman setup, then start by reading DockerCli and DockerJson, which appear in the stack trace under spring-boot-docker-compose. Trace how DockerComposeLifecycleManager discovers and invokes the compose command; done means the Docker Compose feature starts the services successfully when Podman is used.