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Installing in a restricted environment

In a restricted environment you might face the following challenges:

  • The default Podman Desktop and Podman installation methods download assets during the setup.

    However, a network restricted environment might refuse access to these external resources.

    Consider rather using the restricted environment installation method.

  • The Podman Machine receives a network address distinct to your computer network address.

    When you are using a VPN, you might have problems to access, from your host, resources that the Podman Machine exposes.

    Consider enabling the User mode networking option when creating your Podman Machine to route the network traffic through your host.

  • The Podman Machine connects directly to the external network.

    However, a restricted environment might block all traffic no going to a proxy.

    Consider configuring Podman Desktop and your Podman Machine to route the traffic through a proxy.

This tutorial is guiding you through the required steps to work in a restricted environment.

Installing Podman Desktop and Podman​

  1. Check that your environment has:

  2. Prepare your system.

    Enable the WSL feature, without installing the default Ubuntu distribution of Linux.

    Open the Command Prompt, and run:.

    > wsl --install --no-distribution

  3. Restart your computer.

  4. Download the Installer for restricted environments from to the Windows downloads page.

    It has all artifacts required to install Podman Desktop and Podman, and does not require Internet access to download resources during installation. However, it does not contain additional utilities, such as Compose or Kind.

  5. Copy the downloaded file to the Windows host in a restricted environment, and run it.

  6. The Dashboard screen displays: Podman needs to be set up.

    Podman needs set up screen

    Click the Set up button.

    Review and validate all confirmation screens to set up the Podman Machine.

    Optionally, when you are using a VPN, consider enabling user mode networking:

    • When you are using a VPN, you might have problems to access, from your host, resources that the Podman Machine exposes.

      To enable access from your host to resources on your Podman Machine, in the Create Podman machine screen, enable the User mode networking (traffic relayed by a user process) option.

Verification​

  • In the Dashboard, the Podman tile displays Podman is running.

    Podman is running screen

Using a proxy​

Requirements:

  • <your.proxy.tld:port>: Your proxy URL.
  • Optionally: your proxy Certificate Authorities (CA) in Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) format.

  1. To enable proxy settings, go to Settings > Proxy, toggle on Proxy configuration enabled, set your proxy URL, and validate.

    Proxy settings

    Optionally, to use a proxy requiring a custom Certificate Authorities:

    1. Store your proxy Certificate Authorities (CA), in Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) format, in the proxy_ca.pem file.

    2. Copy the certificate to the Podman machine:

      $ cat proxy_ca.pem | podman machine ssh podman-machine-default "cat > proxy_ca.pem"

    3. Open a shell prompt on the Podman machine:

      $ podman machine ssh

    4. Add the custom Certificate Authorities (CA) for your proxy:

      $ sudo cp <proxy_ca.pem> /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/
      $ sudo update-ca-trust

    Optionally, to use a proxy in your containers:

    1. Open a shell prompt on the Podman machine:

      $ podman machine ssh

    2. Edit the containers.conf file to pass the proxy environment variables to Podman CLI.

      The file location depends on your connection mode:

      • rootless: $HOME/.config/containers/containers.conf

      • rootful: /etc/containers/containers.conf

    3. Set the proxy environment variables to pass into the containers:

      [containers]
      http_proxy = true
      env = ["http_proxy=<your.proxy.tld:port>", "https_proxy=<your.proxy.tld:port>"]

  2. Go to Settings > Resources and restart the Podman machine.

Verification​

  1. Podman can pull images.

    1. Go to Images.
    2. Click Pull an image.
    3. Image to Pull: Enter an image name, such as quay.io/podman/hello.
    4. Click Pull image.
    5. Podman Desktop reports Download complete.

  2. You can install extensions such as: