Step 1: Update Your System

Before installing Podman, ensure your system is up to date. Run the following commands:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Keeping your system updated is crucial for security and performance, whether you're setting it up locally or on a VPS Windows Servers platform.

Step 2: Install Required Dependencies

Podman requires several packages and libraries to build from source. Install the necessary dependencies with:

sudo apt install -y \
    golang-go \
    make \
    gcc \
    btrfs-progs \
    libseccomp-dev \
    libassuan-dev \
    libgpgme-dev \
    pkg-config \
    libdevmapper-dev \
    libglib2.0-dev \
    gpgme \
    git \
    libostree-dev
            

Step 3: Set Up Go Environment

Podman is written in Go, so you need to configure the Go environment. Set up the Go workspace with the following commands:

mkdir -p ~/go/src/github.com/containers
export GOPATH=~/go
export PATH=$GOPATH/bin:$PATH
            

You can add the above lines to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc file to make these changes permanent.

Step 4: Clone the Podman Repository

Now, clone the Podman repository from GitHub into your Go workspace:

cd ~/go/src/github.com/containers
git clone https://github.com/containers/podman.git
cd podman

Step 5: Build Podman

Before building Podman, ensure you have all the required dependencies. You can install them using the following command:

make install.tools

Once the tools are installed, build Podman by running:

make

Step 6: Install Podman

After successfully building Podman, install it by running:

sudo make install

Step 7: Verify Podman Installation

To verify that Podman has been installed correctly, check the version:

podman --version

You should see the installed version of Podman displayed in the terminal.

Step 8: Test Podman

To test Podman, you can run a simple container using:

podman run --rm hello-world

This will pull the hello-world image from the container registry and run it.