Running podman inside github actions macosx runner.

[james-lawrence]

I've been attempting to install and execute podman inside of a macosx runner for github actions and running into issues when using brew to install podman.

wondering if anyone has an experience doing this? I've had trouble with brew install podman on baremetal in the past as well. I believe i worked around it to get the CLI working using the podman-desktop dmg installer. can't really do that in this case.

name: macos build
on:
  workflow_dispatch: # Allows manual triggering

jobs:
  macos:
    name: macosx-build
    runs-on: macos-latest
    steps:
    - name: Set up Homebrew
      id: set-up-homebrew
      uses: Homebrew/actions/setup-homebrew@main
    - uses: tecolicom/actions-use-homebrew-tools@v1
      with:
        tools: 'duckdb gpgme flutter tree'
        verbose: false
    - name: Checkout repository
      uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: build
      run: |
        brew install --cask podman-desktop
        brew install podman
        podman machine init --now
        podman version

 ==> Installing Cask podman-desktop
==> Moving App 'Podman Desktop.app' to '/Applications/Podman Desktop.app'
🍺  podman-desktop was successfully installed!
==> No outdated dependents to upgrade!
==> Fetching downloads for: podman
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/podman/manifests/5.6.0
==> Fetching podman
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/podman/blobs/sha256:f35cd26f84c297fe05e030180e468847e8920044229ee8635cddd6057df7a52d
==> Pouring podman--5.6.0.arm64_sonoma.bottle.tar.gz
==> Caveats
In order to run containers locally, podman depends on a Linux kernel.
One can be started manually using `podman machine` from this package.
To start a podman VM automatically at login, also install the cask
"podman-desktop".
==> Summary
🍺  /opt/homebrew/Cellar/podman/5.6.0: 217 files, 75.7MB
==> No outdated dependents to upgrade!
==> Caveats
Bash completion has been installed to:
  /opt/homebrew/etc/bash_completion.d
Looking up Podman Machine image at quay.io/podman/machine-os:5.6 to create VM
Getting image source signatures
Copying blob sha256:18ea59b07126405e4f29c597131dda1bd4474fe578d7000136f4c6bb7a936014
Copying config sha256:44136fa355b3678a1146ad16f7e8649e94fb4fc21fe77e8310c060f61caaff8a
Writing manifest to image destination
18ea59b07126405e4f29c597131dda1bd4474fe578d7000136f4c6bb7a936014
Machine init complete
Starting machine "podman-machine-default"
Error: vfkit exited unexpectedly with exit code 1
Error: Process completed with exit code 125.

[Luap99]

The github action runners don't allowed visualization so you cannot run a VM in there. I think you need bare metal mac machines if you need to run podman machine on mac in CI.

[james-lawrence]

oi that's a brutal limitation but good to know; ran into similar issues locally so didnt even register as a github action limitation.

[Luap99]

Most CI cloud systems won't allow nested virtualization as they already run in a VM. We have to use "expensive" bare metal machines for our upstream CI for podman machine to test it.

I don't know what you are trying to test/run but if you try to test something in podman machine (linux) only I would suggest you just use a linux runner instead and use podman there.

For actual reference
https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/runners/larger-runners#limitations-for-macos-larger-runners

Nested-virtualization and Metal Performance Shaders (MPS) are not supported due to the limitation of Apple's Virtualization Framework.

[james-lawrence]

its not a linux thing =) just some builtin functionality in the platform i'm building I'll just need to flag disable it for this particular use case. leave it to apple to half ass the virtualization =)