Installing podman 5+ on ubuntu older versions

[kolonelkrazy]

Podman 5 was released in Springish of 2024. My original comments here were ignorant of the release timings between Ubuntu/Podman, and I edited this post to be a usable solution instead of complaining:

Modern packages of Podman (version 5.3+) are included in a new build of Ubuntu 25.04 codename plucky. To get these packages but keep an LTS for the rest of the system you can do some apt tricks, specifically pinning.

Please note this can be dangerous if you aren't careful and don't know what you're doing.

My original system is 24.04 Ubuntu codenamed noble.

Your original ubuntu sources file looks something like this, I added plucky to the Suites.

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources:

Types: deb
URIs: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
Suites: noble noble-updates noble-backports plucky
Components: main universe restricted multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

## Ubuntu security updates. Aside from URIs and Suites,
## this should mirror your choices in the previous section.
Types: deb
URIS: http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
Suites: noble-security
Components: main universe restricted multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

To pin packages for podman it's dependencies and related stuff place this file:

/etc/apt/preferences/podman​

Package: podman buildah golang-github-containers-common crun libgpgme11t64 libgpg-error0 golang-github-containers-image catatonit conmon containers-storage
Pin: release n=plucky
Pin-Priority: 991

Package: libsubid4 netavark passt aardvark-dns containernetworking-plugins libslirp0 slirp4netns
Pin: release n=plucky
Pin-Priority: 991

Package: *
Pin: release n=plucky
Pin-Priority: 400

This will allow you to install updated podman but keep packages for everything else pinned to the noble suite until you're ready to upgrade. In my case the cloud provider only has 24.04 ubuntu images available.

Check your work

1. apt update
2. apt-cache policy podman - should show apt selecting the plucky podman package as the preferred

podman:
  Installed: 5.4.0+ds1-1
  Candidate: 5.4.0+ds1-1
  Version table:
 *** 5.4.0+ds1-1 991
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     4.9.3+ds1-1ubuntu0.2 700
        700 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/universe amd64 Packages
     4.9.3+ds1-1ubuntu0.1 700
        700 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security/universe amd64 Packages
     4.9.3+ds1-1build2 700
        700 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/universe amd64 Packages

3. apt-cache policy vim - should show apt selecting the noble vim package as the preferred

vim:
  Installed: 2:9.1.0016-1ubuntu7.6
  Candidate: 2:9.1.0016-1ubuntu7.6
  Version table:
     2:9.1.0967-1ubuntu3 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky/main amd64 Packages
 *** 2:9.1.0016-1ubuntu7.6 700
        700 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/main amd64 Packages
        700 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2:9.1.0016-1ubuntu7 700
        700 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/main amd64 Packages

[kolonelkrazy]

Instructions were updated to do pinning more sanely.

If you go to upgrade your server this method could prove to be a headache if you forget you did this, maybe add something to your MOTD to remind you of this customization would help in the future.