Quadlet is a systemd generator that allows you to manage Podman containers, pods, and networks using systemd unit files. This is especially useful for running containers under systemd as user services in a rootless environment.

This tutorial walks you through setting up and using Quadlet with rootless Podman containers on RHEL 10, Fedora 40+, and Rocky/AlmaLinux.

Prerequisites

• RHEL/AlmaLinux/RockyLinux 10+
• Podman (Container Management)

Install Podman

On RHEL 10, install Podman:

sudo dnf groupinstall -y 'Container Management'

Verify Podman Installation

Switch to your regular (non-root) user account, then verify that Podman is working by running the following command:

podman run hello-world

For example, you might see output similar to:

[unixworld@rhel10 ~]$ podman run hello-world
Resolved "hello-world" as an alias (/etc/containers/registries.conf.d/000-shortnames.conf)
Trying to pull quay.io/podman/hello:latest...
Getting image source signatures
Copying blob 81df7ff16254 done   |
Copying config 5dd467fce5 done   |
Writing manifest to image destination
!... Hello Podman World ...!

         .--"--.
       / -     - \
      / (O)   (O) \
   ~~~| -=(,Y,)=- |
    .---. /`  \   |~~
 ~/  o  o \~~~~.----. ~~
  | =(X)= |~  / (O (O) \
   ~~~~~~~  ~| =(Y_)=-  |
  ~~~~    ~~~|   U      |~~

Project:   https://github.com/containers/podman
Website:   https://podman.io
Desktop:   https://podman-desktop.io
Documents: https://docs.podman.io
YouTube:   https://youtube.com/@Podman
X/Twitter: @Podman_io
Mastodon:  @[email protected]

Enable and Start systemd User Session

Ensure your system supports lingering (to run user services even when logged out):

sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER

Quadlet Directory Structure

Quadlet reads configuration files from your user’s systemd directory:

systemd user service units get generated to:

~/.config/systemd/user/

Quadlet config location (rootless):

~/.config/containers/systemd/

Create the directory if it does not exist:

mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/systemd

Write a Quadlet Container File

Let's create a simple Quadlet file to run an Nginx container.

Filename: nginx.container

Path: ~/.config/containers/systemd/nginx.container

[Unit]
Description=Nginx Container
After=local-fs.target

[Container]
Image=docker.io/library/nginx:latest
PublishPort=8080:80

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

Reload systemd User Daemon

Tell systemd to regenerate and reload user units:

systemctl --user daemon-reload

Manage the Container with systemd

Start the Nginx container as a user service and enable on boot:

systemctl --user start nginx.service

Check status by running the following command:

systemctl --user status nginx.service

Access the Container

Open http://localhost:8080 in your web browser, or test it using curl.

[unixworld@rhel10 ~]$ curl -I http://localhost:8080
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/1.27.5
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 19:53:12 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 615
Last-Modified: Wed, 16 Apr 2025 12:01:11 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
ETag: "67ff9c07-267"
Accept-Ranges: bytes

Stopping and Removing the Container

To stop the service:

systemctl --user stop nginx.service

To remove the Quadlet unit, delete the .container file and reload systemd:

rm ~/.config/containers/systemd/nginx.container
systemctl --user daemon-reload

Further Reading

• Podman Quadlet Documentation
• Rootless Podman
• man podman-systemd.unit

You now have rootless, user-managed containers on RHEL 10 with systemd and Quadlet!