Podman: automatic `--userns=keep-id` breaks containers using host networking
Author: jankapCreated Sep 3, 2026Updated Sep 3, 2026
I'm facing an issue when using podman and --network=host combination:
Environment
@devcontainers/cli: 0.88.0- Podman client/server: 5.7.1
- Host: WSL2
- Podman server: rootful
Problem
For Podman on Linux and a non-root remoteUser, Dev Containers automatically adds:
--security-opt label=disable --userns=keep-id
See https://github.com/devcontainers/cli/issues/1004 and https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/10399.
When the configuration also requires --network=host, the container fails to start.
Minimal underlying reproducer
This fails:
podman run --rm \
--network=host \
--userns=keep-id \
docker.io/library/alpine:3.20 \
true
Error:
crun: mount `sysfs` to `sys`: Operation not permitted: OCI permission denied
Without --userns=keep-id, it succeeds:
podman run --rm \
--network=host \
docker.io/library/alpine:3.20 \
true
The CLI-generated podman run command contains both:
--userns=keep-id --network=host
The automatic argument is added in:
src/spec-node/singleContainer.ts
getPodmanArgs()
Expected behavior
Users must be able to prevent the CLI from adding --userns=keep-id.
Possible fixes
No one is perfect I'm afraid.
- Do not add
--userns=keep-idwhen--network=hostis present. - Add a setting or CLI option to disable automatic Podman arguments.
- Respect an explicit
--userns=...inrunArgsand do not add--userns=keep-id. - Make automatic
--userns=keep-idopt-in instead of unconditional for non-root users.
Big thanks.
Source: devcontainers/cli