podman with Docker Compose

Use podman with Docker Compose v2 Plugin instead of the podman-compose tool

Benefits

• keep your compose applications up-to-date with the Compose Specification
• easy to change Docker Compose plugin versions
• flexibility with using multiple Docker Compose versions

Customization

Current docker-compose CLI plugin is installed in:

~/.docker/cli-plugins/

You can install different versions of docker-compose from the Compose GitHub release page into a custom directory using:

Download custom Docker Compose CLI

mkdir -p ~/custom-compose
wget https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/<COMPOSE_VERSION>/docker-compose-linux-x86_64 \
-O ~/custom-compose/docker-compose
chmod +x custom-compose/docker-compose

Configure podman using environment variable

use the PODMAN_COMPOSE_PROVIDER environment variable

PODMAN_COMPOSE_PROVIDER=~/custom-compose/docker-compose podman-compose version

Configure podman using configuration file

edit the [engine] section in ~/.config/containers/container.conf:

[engine]
compose_providers = ["~/custom-compose/docker-compose"]