Install

Visit Installing Podman Desktop section from the Podman Desktop documentation for the steps to install Podman Desktop on Windows, macOS, and GNU/Linux.

On Windows and macOS, Podman Desktop will, by default, create a Podman machine because Windows and macOS cannot run containers natively.

On Windows, you can use any Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) to run Podman and have Podman Desktop managing Podman via SSH. The next section will provide more details for this.

Configure Remote Access

Enable remote connection on Podman Desktop’s Settings, Preferences, Extension: Podman.
Generate a SSH key on the machine that you use, for example, the Windows machine.
```
ssh-keygen -t ed25519
```
On the GNU/Linux remote machine, install the SSH server.
On the GNU/Linux remote machine, start and enable the SSH server.
Copy the previously created SSH key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys of the GNU/Linux remote machine.
Test the SSH connection from the machine that you use to the GNU/Linux remote machine.

On the GNU/Linux remote machine, enable Podman’s socket.

systemctl enable --user podman.socket
systemctl start --user podman.socket

On the GNU/Linux remote machine, confirm that the Podman’s socket is enabled.
```
systemctl status --user podman.socket
```

Add the connection to the remote Podman.

On the Windows machine, use PowerShell to run

podman system connection `
add $env:username `
--identity c:\Users\$env:username\.ssh\id_ed25519 `
ssh://$env:username@localhost:22/run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock

Confirm that the connection to the remote Podman was created.
```
podman system connection ls
```