Systemd Debian Container Images For Ansible and Podman

Systemd Debian Container Images for testing Ansible roles with Molecule and Podman. Supported Debian versions:

• 13 - Trixie
• 12 - Bookworm

Available Images

Images are built weekly via GitHub Actions and can be downloaded from the GitHub Package Registry.

These tags are available. They are updated on changes to the main branch and are automatically rebuilt once a week.

• ghcr.io/theoborealis/debian-systemd-podman:13
• ghcr.io/theoborealis/debian-systemd-podman:12

Container Features

Feature	Status	Notes
systemd	✅	Runs as PID 1
ansible systemd module	✅	Full support
podman	✅	Full support
docker-compose	✅	Run compose files inside container via podman socket
bridge networking	✅	Via volume mount /proc/sys/net

How to Use

• Install Podman

• Run the container via Podman (unprivileged):

  podman run -it --systemd=true \
      --cap-add SYS_ADMIN,NET_ADMIN \
      --device /dev/fuse \
      -v /proc/sys/net:/proc/sys/net:rw \
      ghcr.io/theoborealis/debian-systemd-podman:12

• --cap-add SYS_ADMIN,NET_ADMIN - required for nested containers
• --device /dev/fuse - required for fuse-overlayfs
• -v /proc/sys/net:/proc/sys/net:rw - network sysctl access (isolated in container network namespace)

Molecule Testing

This image is designed for testing Ansible roles with Molecule.

Example molecule.yml

---
driver:
  name: podman
platforms:
  - name: instance
    image: ghcr.io/theoborealis/debian-systemd-podman:12
    systemd: true
    command: /lib/systemd/systemd
    capabilities:
      - SYS_ADMIN
      - NET_ADMIN
    devices:
      - /dev/fuse
    volumes:
      - /proc/sys/net:/proc/sys/net:rw
    pre_build_image: true
provisioner:
  name: ansible
verifier:
  name: ansible

What's Included

• systemd (PID 1)
• podman + docker-compose (run compose files inside container)
• Non-root ansible user with sudo access

For podman-in-podman support:

• /etc/subuid, /etc/subgid configured for user namespaces
• cgroup_manager = "cgroupfs" in /etc/containers/containers.conf
• DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/podman/podman.sock for docker-compose compatibility

Debugging

# Enter the container
podman exec -it <container_name> bash

# Check systemd
systemctl status

# Check podman
podman run --rm alpine echo hello

# Check docker-compose
docker-compose version

Forked from https://github.com/hifis-net/debian-systemd