Podman on Windows via WSL2

I prefer using a dedicated WSL instance to run containers. So I’ll install a minimal distribution, Alpine, to run podman.

Install the tool LxRunOffline first via scoop

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install lxrunoffline

Download Alpine root package from https://lxrunoffline.apphb.com/download/Alpine. See more distributions in LxRunOffline Wiki.

Then create a WSL instance from the package

lxrunoffline.exe i -n Alpine -f alpine-minirootfs-3.12.0-x86_64.tar.gz -d "D:\WSL\Alpine" -v 2 -r .

This will install Alpine into folder D:\WSL\Alpine. Although -v 2 is specified, but when I’m running it, the installed instance is still v1. It’s easy to fix by migrating to version 2.

wsl --set-version Alpine 2

Now start the instance

wsl ~ -d Alpine

Edit /etc/apk/repositories to switch to edge and add testing repository.

http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/main
http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community
http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing

Install podman

apk update
apk add podman

It’s time to run Alpine inside Alpine

podman run --rm -it docker.io/alpine ash