Podman 6 in Fedora 45: version, rootless and Quadlet in practice

Fedora 45 moves the container stack to Podman 6.1 (official ChangeSet: Podman 6). Command shapes are largely unchanged; two things genuinely affect migration: the API version jumped a major release, and podman generate systemd is now formally deprecated.

The output below comes from F45.

Version and backend first

podman version
podman info --format "{{.Host.Security.Rootless}} {{.Store.GraphDriverName}} {{.Version.Version}}"

Client:        Podman Engine
Version:       6.1.0
API Version:   6.1.0
Go Version:    go1.27rc2-X:nodwarf5
Build Origin:  Fedora Project
OS/Arch:       linux/amd64

true overlay 6.1.0

Those three values are rootless or not, storage driver, and server version. API Version leaps to 6.1 with Version — scripts calling the API must check fields against it.

The rootless uid mapping

rootless is not a “degraded mode”; it uses a user namespace to map container root onto your ordinary user:

id -u
podman unshare cat /proc/self/uid_map

1000
         0       1000          1
         1     524288      65536

Read it as: container uid 0 → host uid 1000; container uids 1–65536 → a host range starting at 524288. That is why container root cannot touch host root files — it is not host root at all.

Storage follows into your home directory:

podman info --format "{{.Store.GraphRoot}}"

/home/labuser/.local/share/containers/storage

Only rootful uses /var/lib/containers/storage. When “I pulled an image but cannot see it”, check which mode you are in first.

Quadlet: hand containers to systemd (the recommended route)

On F45, podman generate systemd prints a deprecation notice outright:

DEPRECATED command:
It is recommended to use Quadlets for running containers and pods under systemd.

The replacement is Quadlet. Full flow:

Step one, write the unit (the extension is .container, not .service):

mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/systemd
cat > ~/.config/containers/systemd/hello.container <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=Hello container

[Container]
Image=registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora-minimal:45
Exec=sleep infinity

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
EOF

Step two, let systemd see it:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user list-unit-files "hello*"

UNIT FILE     STATE     PRESET
hello.service generated -

generated is the point: Quadlet turns .container into .service during daemon-reload, and you never write the service file.

Step three, start and confirm:

systemctl --user start hello.service
podman ps --format "{{.Names}} {{.Status}}"

systemd-hello Up 1 second

The container name is systemd-hello — Quadlet derives it from the unit name.

Three things people trip on

Symptom	Cause	Fix
`Unit hello.service not found`	no `daemon-reload`, or the file is not in `~/.config/containers/systemd/`	check path and extension, then reload
the container stops when SSH exits	user-level systemd dies with the session	`loginctl enable-linger $USER`
image pulled but `podman images` is empty	one is rootless (home dir), the other rootful (`/var/lib`)	run everything as the same user

loginctl enable-linger $USER   # keep user services running after logout

Post-upgrade checklist

podman version to confirm 6.1, podman info for the backend;
podman ps -a to confirm old containers are still there and still start;
rewrite every file produced by podman generate systemd as a Quadlet (.container);
daemon-reload and start each one, confirming the unit state is generated rather than static.

Fedora containers and rootless — the toolchain and SELinux
Isolated development with Toolbox — containers on the development side
Cheat sheet — everyday podman commands
Fedora 45: changes, download and upgrade — the six changes at a glance
Official: Fedora 45 ChangeSet