Yeah but they have invented the declarative file format, but they put it in /etc, why not put it in $HOME/.config/systemd instead? That would make it more on-par with docker compose.

I'm hoping this is in the future of quadlet. Being able to run the files from CWD, using systemd units in $HOME, and not requiring root.

For rootless use, put the files in ~/.config/containers/systemd/

Thanks I just realized that.

So really for a developer it would potentially be this simple;

    cp my-app.container $HOME/.config/containers/systemd && systemctl --user daemon-reload

Just to compare with docker-compose again.

You should be able to use `systemctl --user link` which is a bit nicer than copying.

       link PATH...
           Link a unit file that is not in the unit file search path into the unit
           file search path. This command expects an absolute path to a unit file.
           The effect of this may be undone with disable. The effect of this command
           is that a unit file is made available for commands such as start, even
           though it is not installed directly in the unit search path. The file
           system where the linked unit files are located must be accessible when
           systemd is started (e.g. anything underneath /home/ or /var/ is not
           allowed, unless those directories are located on the root file system).

The cool thing is you can also create .kube file which points to a kubernetes pod definition yaml. This also generates a service definition which takes care of running a full pod with all your containers.

Can you run your stuff on port 80/443 like this?

Alex, since you're here does quadlet support override files like systemd's /etc/systemd/system/foo.service.d directories? I couldn't find it in the documentation.

The generator doesn't do that atm no. Seems like it would be useful though.

On the other hand, I belive systemd would load override files for the generated .service file, although those can just override details on the systemd level, not the generated podman command.

Yeah, my usecase was to override Network or Expose directives.

It works in the home directory. Just place the quadlet file in $HOME/.config/containers/systemd $ systemctl --user daemon-reload $ systemctl --user start QUADLETNAME.service

If you want this to work at boot, you need to do loginctl enable-linger $USERNAME