Podman Desktop does not show remote containers

[kdwk]

Bug description

Podman Desktop on macOS does not show remote containers on a Linux server.

Operating system

macOS Tahoe 26.1

Installation Method

Installer from website/GitHub releases

Version

1.23.0

Steps to reproduce

1. podman-remote system connection add m2-container --identity ~/.ssh/m2_container_key_m2 ssh://[email protected]/run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock
2. Turn on Podman Desktop -> Settings -> Preferences-> Extension: Podman -> Remote
3. Podman Desktop -> Containers does not show anything

Relevant log output

Podman CLI is able to see the remote server:

kdwk@Kdwk-MacBook react % podman system connection list
Name                         URI                                                              Identity                                                    Default     ReadWrite
m2-container                 ssh://[email protected]:22/run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock  /Users/kdwk/.ssh/m2_container_key_m2                        true        true
podman-machine-default       ssh://[email protected]:49280/run/user/501/podman/podman.sock       /Users/kdwk/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/machine  false       true
podman-machine-default-root  ssh://[email protected]:49280/run/podman/podman.sock                /Users/kdwk/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/machine  false       true


Podman CLI is able to see the remote container:

kdwk@Kdwk-MacBook react % podman ps
Key Passphrase: 
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                        COMMAND               CREATED      STATUS         PORTS       NAMES
1bbd72f58ea5  docker.io/library/ros:jazzy  --verbose --name ...  2 hours ago  Up 33 minutes              ros-jazzy


Podman CLI is able to attach to the remote container and execute commands:

kdwk@Kdwk-MacBook react % podman exec -it ros-jazzy bash
Key Passphrase: 
root@m2-container:/#

Additional context

Yet Podman Desktop is unable to show any running containers:

And again the Remote setting is turned on:

[Tonyehd]

-You need to have a ssh key that does not require a password when you access the remote machine. If in terminal when you use the command "podman ps" it requires you to enter a passphrase then you need to create a new key that does not need a passphrase, copy it to the remote and set the remote as default and the containers will populate.
Why i know... just went through this exact problem and now containers are populating

[simonrey1]

@kdwk does the answer from @Tonyehd solves your issue?

[hideosnes]

Huh, apparently I'm not the only one running in this problem: The remote setting of PM Desktop is turned on, and I added a ssh-passphrase:

CLI: podman --connection=remote-server ps -> does not show containers

asks for passphrase podman --remote --connection=remote-server ps -> does show containers

~I can only speculate, but perhaps there's an issue, in which PMD does not use --remote even though the setting is turned on?~

(@MarsKubeX I'm on Zorin (Ubuntu) local <-> Ubuntu 22 server, so that might not be an issue limited to macOS)

Edit: @Tonyehd 's work-around did result in containers being populated. Here's how I got it to run:

1. creates a new ssh key specifically for podman without a passphrase (in case the key is used elsewhere with passphrase) ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/podman_key -N ""
2. copies this key to the remote ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/podman_key.pub user@server-ip
3. Update the local podman connection to use the new key. (/user/1000 isn't necessary of on root)

podman system connection remove my-server
podman system connection add my-server --identity ~/.ssh/podman_key ssh://user@server-ip/run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock
podman system connection default my-server

---

However, that still doesn't really solve the issue of using a passphrase. Or at least mention it in the docs <3