Quadlet run persistent systemd container

[k-bx]

Enabling a Quadlet .container unit (e.g. myproj.container) via systemctl enable myproj.container fails with:

Failed to enable unit: Unit myproj.container.service does not exist

This happens even though the Quadlet generator is present, and --dryrun shows the service being generated correctly.
This undermines the core value of Quadlet — declarative container units that persist across reboots.

Steps to reproduce

1. Install Podman with Quadlet support (/usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/podman-system-generator exists).
2. Create /etc/containers/systemd/myproj.container with at least:

[Unit]
Description=Test container

[Container]
Image=docker.io/library/ubuntu:22.04
ContainerName=myproj

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

3. Run:

sudo systemctl daemon-reexec
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable myproj.container

4. Observe the failure:

Failed to enable unit: Unit myproj.container.service does not exist

5. Verify the generator works:

sudo /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/podman-system-generator --dryrun

→ shows a correct myproj.service generated under /run/systemd/generator/.

Expected behavior

Running:

sudo systemctl enable myproj.container

should succeed and configure the container service to start on boot, just like enabling any other native systemd unit.

Workarounds

• Manually generate a service via podman generate systemd and enable that.
• Or create a helper .service that Wants= the generated one.
But both defeat Quadlet’s declarative design.

System info

• Podman version: 5.4.2
• Systemd version: 257 (257.7-1)
• Distro: debian trixie

[Luap99]

quadlet is a generator, it translated .contianer file to service files. You cannot use the .container suffixed with systemd.

As for enabling a unit that is documented: https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-systemd.unit.5.html#enabling-unit-files