Arch

Podman

Podman is more secure than Docker because it's rootless and daemonless, but we have to apply an extra hack to enable auto-restart of containers after a system reboot. If it didn't work on your system, then use Docker.

If you'll use Podman, then simply change docker to podman in all commands, e.g. podman compose up -d.

Install dependencies

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get update -y && sudo apt-get install -y podman docker-compose

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf -y install podman docker-compose

# openSUSE
sudo zypper --non-interactive install podman docker-compose

# Arch
sudo pacman -Sy --noconfirm podman docker-compose

Enable auto-restart

sudo loginctl enable-linger "$(whoami)"

# install script and unit
install -Dm755 ./podman/auto-start.sh ~/.local/bin/podman-auto-start-spasm.sh
install -Dm644 ./podman/auto-start.service ~/.config/systemd/user/podman-auto-start-spasm.service

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now podman-auto-start-spasm.service

Note: this setup only enables auto-restart for containers from directories that start with spasm-docker in home root ~/ and in `~/apps.

Troubleshooting

If systemctl --user fails with scope bus errors, then your systemd session isn't active. Verify with:

loginctl show-user $(whoami) | grep State=active

Solution: run all commands while logged in directly as the target user (not via su). If your user doesn't have sudo, then enable lingering for your user from admin, then run the install/systemctl commands as a user.

# As admin (with sudo), enable lingering for 'user'
sudo loginctl enable-linger user

# As 'user'
install -Dm755 ./podman/auto-start.sh ~/.local/bin/podman-auto-start-spasm.sh
install -Dm644 ./podman/auto-start.service ~/.config/systemd/user/podman-auto-start-spasm.service
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now podman-auto-start-spasm.service

Install the app and verify that containers restart after reboot.

podman ps
su - admin
sudo reboot now
# ssh back into user
podman ps
# you should see a list or running containers

Alternativelly, use Docker since it's much easier to set up because it runs as a root.

Other

# view logs
tail -f ~/.local/share/podman-auto-start-spasm.log