Podman initialize (init) not working on Windows 10

Question

UPDATE: I managed to fix this by enabling wsl2 with this command

wsl --set-default-version 2

After running podman-v4.1.0.msi and running the podman machine init command in power shell i get this:

Copr repo for podman4 owned by rhcontainerbot                                            12 kB/s | 1.0 kB     00:00
Importing GPG key 0x2F6C3CBA:
 Userid     : "rhcontainerbot_podman4 (None) <rhcontainerbot#podman4@copr.fedorahosted.org>"
 Fingerprint: 79B5 022D 580F B1D6 B527 CB83 3BB2 485A 2F6C 3CBA
 From       : https://download.copr.fedorainfracloud.org/results/rhcontainerbot/podman4/pubkey.gpg
Key imported successfully
error: sqlite failure: CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS 'Packages' (hnum INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,blob BLOB NOT NULL): locking protocol
error: cannot open Packages index using sqlite - No such file or directory (2)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
Import of key(s) didn't help, wrong key(s)?
error: sqlite failure: CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS 'Packages' (hnum INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,blob BLOB NOT NULL): locking protocol

After running for a while I finally get this:

 GPG Keys are configured as: file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-35-x86_64
Public key for systemd-pam-249.12-3.fc35.x86_64.rpm is not installed. Failing package is: systemd-pam-249.12-3.fc35.x86_64
 GPG Keys are configured as: file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-35-x86_64
Public key for systemd-resolved-249.12-3.fc35.x86_64.rpm is not installed. Failing package is: systemd-resolved-249.12-3.fc35.x86_64
 GPG Keys are configured as: file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-35-x86_64
Public key for util-linux-2.37.4-1.fc35.x86_64.rpm is not installed. Failing package is: util-linux-2.37.4-1.fc35.x86_64
 GPG Keys are configured as: file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-35-x86_64
Public key for util-linux-core-2.37.4-1.fc35.x86_64.rpm is not installed. Failing package is: util-linux-core-2.37.4-1.fc35.x86_64
 GPG Keys are configured as: file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-35-x86_64
The downloaded packages were saved in cache until the next successful transaction.
You can remove cached packages by executing 'dnf clean packages'.
Error: GPG check FAILED
Error: package installation on guest OS failed: exit status 1

Trying to start podman I get this:

bin/bash: line 1: /root/bootstrap: No such file or directory
Error: WSL bootstrap script failed: exit status 127

It installs the other stuff before this but seems to have trouble towards the end.

podman machine list gives this output:

NAME                     VM TYPE     CREATED         LAST UP         CPUS        MEMORY      DISK SIZE
podman-machine-default*  wsl         38 minutes ago  38 minutes ago  12          17.13GB     0B

Podman Version 4.1.0

Windows Build 21H2 19044.1706

Answer 1

podman machine init fails and further attempts get broken even more in case you have your C:\Users\<username>\.ssh directory linked to a different location (like cygwin ~/.ssh).

The fix:

• Temporary remove the symlink
• Do a wsl --unregister podman-machine-default
• Initialize the podman machine podman machine init
• Redo your .ssh symlinks

Windows Event Viewer may have information about why your podman is not working as expected.

Answer 2

At the 1st time please run the podman desktop as the administrator mode.

Answer 3

Maybe Hyper-V is not enabled yet.

Open run dialog: Press "Window + R". Type "appwiz.cpl" and enter. Click "Turn Window features on or off". Looking to "Hyper-V" and turn it on.

Then run these command to try again:

"podman machine rm"

"podman machine init".

Good luck.

Answer 4

It started to work after making WSL2 the default.

wsl --set-default-version 2