EN Providers Podman Prerequisites

Podman prerequisites

Linux (rootless)

systemctl --user enable --now podman.socket
export WHALESHELL_DRIVER=podman
# export WHALESHELL_PODMAN_SOCKET=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/podman/podman.sock
# or: export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/user/$UID/podman/podman.sock

podman info
whaleshell status

macOS (Podman Machine)

podman machine init     # once
podman machine start
export WHALESHELL_DRIVER=podman
whaleshell status

Discovery also checks ~/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/podman.sock and podman info.

Images

Use the same sandbox tags as Docker (whaleshell-sandbox:local, :cursor, … or GHCR catalog). Build with Docker tooling on a host that can push/load into Podman’s store, or podman pull / podman load equivalents.

podman images | grep whaleshell

Gateway

Gateway still runs on the host (binary or compose). Select it before create with providers or proxy enabled — same as Docker.