Requirements

Linux

• Distribution: Arch, Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora-based, or omarchy
• Podman 4.5 or newer, rootless, with systemd user session active
• crun: recommended OCI runtime for rootless Podman
• DNS resolver: NetworkManager or systemd-resolved (at least one is required for .test DNS)
• systemctl --user functional: run loginctl enable-linger $USER if needed

Podman 4.5 minimum

WARNING

Lerd creates the lerd podman network with podman network create --dns, a flag added in podman 4.5 (April 2023). Older releases fail install with Error: unknown flag: --dns. Distribution defaults that ship podman older than 4.5:

Distro	Default podman	Workaround
Ubuntu 22.04	3.4.4	Install a newer podman from the Kubic libcontainers OBS repo
Zorin 17	3.4.4	Same Kubic instructions as Ubuntu 22.04 (Zorin 17 is jammy-based)
Debian 12 (bookworm)	4.3.1	sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports podman (ships 4.9+)
Debian 11 (bullseye)	3.0.1	Upgrade to Debian 12 + enable bookworm-backports

Fedora 38+, Ubuntu 24.04+, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Arch and CachyOS all ship podman 4.5 or newer out of the box.

Linger must be enabled

If systemctl --user units do not survive logout, run:

loginctl enable-linger $USER

This is required for Podman Quadlet containers to start automatically and persist across sessions.

crun is the recommended OCI runtime

Most distributions ship crun as the default rootless Podman runtime. On Arch-based systems, runc is the default and crun must be installed separately. While both runtimes work, crun is lighter and purpose-built for rootless containers. lerd doctor will warn if crun is not installed.

# Arch / omarchy
sudo pacman -S crun

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install crun

# Fedora
sudo dnf install crun

• unzip: used during install to extract fnm
• certutil / nss-tools: for mkcert to install the CA into Chrome/Firefox. Only needed when lerd manages DNS for .test sites with HTTPS. If you pick the .localhost mode at install time the installer skips this package, so immutable hosts like Fedora Silverblue don't need to layer it.
  • Arch: nss
  • Debian/Ubuntu: libnss3-tools
  • Fedora: nss-tools

Go is only needed to build from source

The released binary is fully static with no runtime dependencies. You do not need Go installed to use Lerd.

macOS

• macOS 13 Ventura or later: Apple Silicon (arm64) or Intel (amd64)
• Homebrew: used to install lerd and its Podman dependency
• Podman: installed automatically as a Homebrew dependency of lerd
• Podman Machine: lerd install boots and configures it on first run
• Xcode Command Line Tools: required by Homebrew (xcode-select --install if missing)

DNS, the local CA (mkcert), and nginx are all set up by lerd install. No system-level resolver configuration is needed; macOS picks up .test lookups from /etc/resolver/test which lerd writes for you.

Podman Machine memory

On first start lerd sizes the Podman Machine VM based on your host RAM so 8 GB MacBooks aren't squeezed while larger machines get headroom for heavier workloads.

Host RAM	Podman Machine memory
≤ 8 GB	3 GB
9-31 GB	4 GB
≥ 32 GB	6 GB

The memory value is a ceiling, not a reservation: the VM only uses what your containers actually request. If sites slow down under load on an 8 GB host, bump the VM manually:

podman machine stop
podman machine set --memory 4096
podman machine start