Vaultwarden

Security rootless 1 container

vaultwarden docker.io/vaultwarden/server:latest · 8080:80

Deployment rootless

1. Prepare the host

Operating System:

Prerequisites once as root

Install Podman (needs podman 4.3 or newer; Ubuntu 22.04 ships 3.4 and is too old, use 24.04)

apt update && apt install -y podman

Create user (if not existing)

useradd -m -s /bin/bash vaultwarden
passwd vaultwarden

Enable linger (services keep running after logout and start after reboot)

loginctl enable-linger vaultwarden

↪

Switch to deployment user

su - vaultwarden

Use su - with the dash — this creates a proper login shell as vaultwarden. Without the dash, root environment variables carry over and rootless Podman will not work correctly.

Fix environment for rootless systemd (new users only — skip if already set)

Required once so systemctl --user works in non-login sessions.

cat << 'EOF' >> ~/.bashrc

# Fix for systemd user services (rootless Podman/systemctl)
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u)
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/bus
EOF
source ~/.bashrc

2. Choose a format and deploy

The same pod in four forms. Pick one and follow only its steps.

Each tab says which podman it needs. Check yours with podman --version: Debian 12 ships 4.3, Ubuntu 24.04 4.9, Debian 13 5.4, Fedora 5.8, Arch 6.x.

Kubernetes YAML for podman kube play, started by systemd through a Quadlet .kube unit (podman 4.4+; older podman like Debian 12 uses podman-kube@, see the version check below).

Kubernetes YAML

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: vaultwarden
  labels:
    app: vaultwarden
spec:
  restartPolicy: Always
  containers:
  - name: vaultwarden
    image: docker.io/vaultwarden/server:latest
    imagePullPolicy: Always
    ports:
    - containerPort: 80
      hostPort: 8080
    env:
    - name: ADMIN_TOKEN
      value: IQSvbGEgGPfSbablv2VO9w
    - name: SIGNUPS_ALLOWED
      value: 'false'
    - name: DOMAIN
      value: https://vaultwarden.example.com
    - name: WEBSOCKET_ENABLED
      value: 'true'
    volumeMounts:
    - name: vol-0
      mountPath: /data
  volumes:
  - name: vol-0
    persistentVolumeClaim:
      claimName: vaultwarden-data

Save the YAML file

mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/
nano ~/.config/containers/vaultwarden.yaml

Test the pod (without autostart)

podman kube play ~/.config/containers/vaultwarden.yaml

# Check status:
podman pod ps && podman ps

# Stop:
podman kube down ~/.config/containers/vaultwarden.yaml

Check your podman version

podman --version

4.4 or newer: continue with step 3 below.

Older, e.g. 4.3 on Debian 12? There is no Quadlet yet: use podman's own podman-kube@ service instead of steps 3–5

systemctl --user enable --now podman-kube@$(systemd-escape ~/.config/containers/vaultwarden.yaml).service

# Status & logs:
systemctl --user status podman-kube@$(systemd-escape ~/.config/containers/vaultwarden.yaml).service
journalctl --user -u podman-kube@$(systemd-escape ~/.config/containers/vaultwarden.yaml).service -f

The day-to-day commands below have a block for this service.

Create Quadlet .kube file

vaultwarden.kube

[Unit]
Description=vaultwarden pod
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Kube]
Yaml=%h/.config/containers/vaultwarden.yaml

[Service]
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

%h is a systemd home-directory specifier — do not replace it with ~/.

Save to ~/.config/containers/systemd/:

mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/systemd/
nano ~/.config/containers/systemd/vaultwarden.kube

Start systemd service

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user start vaultwarden.service

Status & Logs

systemctl --user status vaultwarden.service
journalctl --user -u vaultwarden.service -f
podman pod ps
podman ps

Enable automatic image updates optional

Requires AutoUpdate=registry in the .kube file. Podman then checks for new images and restarts the pod automatically:

systemctl --user enable --now podman.socket
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now podman-auto-update.timer

# Check status:
systemctl --user status podman-auto-update.timer

# Trigger manually:
podman auto-update

Day-to-day logs, restart, update, remove (click to open)

Logs & shell into a container

podman logs -f vaultwarden-vaultwarden
podman exec -it vaultwarden-vaultwarden /bin/sh

Restart

systemctl --user restart vaultwarden.service

Update an image by hand

Pull the new version, the restart recreates the containers from it:

podman pull <image>:<tag>
systemctl --user restart vaultwarden.service

Stop & remove

Stop through systemd, otherwise Restart=always brings the pod back. To remove it for good, delete the unit files and reload:

systemctl --user stop vaultwarden.service
rm ~/.config/containers/systemd/vaultwarden.kube
systemctl --user daemon-reload

podman older than 4.4 (podman-kube@ from step 3)

systemctl --user restart podman-kube@$(systemd-escape ~/.config/containers/vaultwarden.yaml).service

# Update an image: pull, then restart as above
podman pull <image>:<tag>

# Stop and remove from autostart:
systemctl --user disable --now podman-kube@$(systemd-escape ~/.config/containers/vaultwarden.yaml).service

Delete the data — permanent, only after stop & remove

podman volume rm vaultwarden-data

Native systemd units without the Kubernetes YAML: one .pod plus one .container per container. Each container becomes its own systemd service (restart, logs and ordering per container). Needs podman 5.0 or newer — Debian 12 ships 4.3, use the Kube YAML tab there.

Save the unit files

vaultwarden.pod

[Unit]
Description=vaultwarden pod

[Pod]
PodName=vaultwarden
PublishPort=8080:80

vaultwarden-vaultwarden.container

[Unit]
Description=vaultwarden-vaultwarden container

[Container]
Image=docker.io/vaultwarden/server:latest
Pod=vaultwarden.pod
ContainerName=vaultwarden-vaultwarden
Pull=always
Environment=ADMIN_TOKEN=IQSvbGEgGPfSbablv2VO9w
Environment=SIGNUPS_ALLOWED=false
Environment=DOMAIN=https://vaultwarden.example.com
Environment=WEBSOCKET_ENABLED=true
Volume=vaultwarden-data:/data:Z

[Service]
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Save all of them to ~/.config/containers/systemd/:

mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/systemd/
nano ~/.config/containers/systemd/vaultwarden.pod
nano ~/.config/containers/systemd/vaultwarden-vaultwarden.container

Start the pod

The pod service pulls in every container service. Autostart at boot comes from the [Install] section of the units, no enable needed.

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user start vaultwarden-pod.service

Status & Logs

systemctl --user status vaultwarden-pod.service
journalctl --user -u vaultwarden-vaultwarden.service -f
podman pod ps && podman ps

Day-to-day logs, restart, update, remove (click to open)

Logs & shell into a container

podman logs -f vaultwarden-vaultwarden
podman exec -it vaultwarden-vaultwarden /bin/sh

Restart

systemctl --user restart vaultwarden-pod.service

Update an image by hand

Pull the new version, the restart recreates the containers from it:

podman pull <image>:<tag>
systemctl --user restart vaultwarden-pod.service

Stop & remove

Stop through systemd, otherwise Restart=always brings the pod back. To remove it for good, delete the unit files and reload:

systemctl --user stop vaultwarden-pod.service
rm ~/.config/containers/systemd/vaultwarden.pod
rm ~/.config/containers/systemd/vaultwarden-vaultwarden.container
systemctl --user daemon-reload

Delete the data — permanent, only after stop & remove

podman volume rm vaultwarden-data

A docker-compose.yml for podman-compose. Handy if you already work with Compose; there are no per-container systemd services.

Install podman-compose as root

Run this as root, e.g. together with the prerequisites before su - vaultwarden.

apt install -y podman-compose

dnf install -y podman-compose

pacman -S podman-compose

apk add podman-compose

Save the compose file

docker-compose.yml

services:
  vaultwarden:
    image: docker.io/vaultwarden/server:latest
    pull_policy: always
    restart: always
    ports:
    - 8080:80
    environment:
    - ADMIN_TOKEN=IQSvbGEgGPfSbablv2VO9w
    - SIGNUPS_ALLOWED=false
    - DOMAIN=https://vaultwarden.example.com
    - WEBSOCKET_ENABLED=true
    volumes:
    - vaultwarden-data:/data:Z
volumes:
  vaultwarden-data: null

mkdir -p ~/vaultwarden
nano ~/vaultwarden/docker-compose.yml

Start, status & logs

cd ~/vaultwarden
podman-compose up -d
podman-compose ps
podman-compose logs -f

# Stop:
podman-compose down

Start after reboot

podman-restart.service starts every container with restart: always at boot:

systemctl --user enable podman-restart.service

Update images

cd ~/vaultwarden
podman-compose pull
podman-compose up -d

Day-to-day logs, restart, update, remove (click to open)

Logs & shell into a container

podman logs -f vaultwarden_vaultwarden_1
podman exec -it vaultwarden_vaultwarden_1 /bin/sh

Restart

cd ~/vaultwarden
podman-compose restart

Stop & remove

cd ~/vaultwarden
podman-compose down

Delete the data — permanent, only after stop & remove

podman volume rm vaultwarden_vaultwarden-data

Plain podman pod create / podman create commands. Good for a quick test or to see what happens under the hood.

Save the script

vaultwarden.sh

#!/bin/bash
set -e

# ── Create named volumes ───────────────────────────────────────────
# Named volumes are created automatically — no UID/GID permission adjustment needed.
podman volume exists vaultwarden-data || podman volume create vaultwarden-data

# ── Create pod ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
podman pod create \
  --name vaultwarden \
  -p 8080:80

# ── Container: vaultwarden-vaultwarden ─────────────────────────────────────────────
podman create \
  --pod vaultwarden \
  --name vaultwarden-vaultwarden \
  --restart always \
  --pull always \
  -e ADMIN_TOKEN='IQSvbGEgGPfSbablv2VO9w' \
  -e SIGNUPS_ALLOWED='false' \
  -e DOMAIN='https://vaultwarden.example.com' \
  -e WEBSOCKET_ENABLED='true' \
  -v vaultwarden-data:/data:Z \
  docker.io/vaultwarden/server:latest

# ── Start pod ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
podman pod start vaultwarden

# ── Stop & clean up ───────────────────────────────────────────────
# podman pod stop vaultwarden
# podman pod rm vaultwarden

nano vaultwarden.sh

Run it, status & logs

bash vaultwarden.sh
podman pod ps && podman ps
podman logs -f <container-name>

Start after reboot

podman-restart.service starts every container with --restart always at boot:

systemctl --user enable podman-restart.service

Remove or rebuild

The script creates the pod once. To apply changes or new images, remove the pod and run the script again (named volumes stay):

podman pod rm -f vaultwarden
bash vaultwarden.sh

Day-to-day logs, restart, update, remove (click to open)

Logs & shell into a container

podman logs -f vaultwarden-vaultwarden
podman exec -it vaultwarden-vaultwarden /bin/sh

Restart

podman pod stop vaultwarden
podman pod start vaultwarden

Stop & remove

podman pod rm -f vaultwarden

Delete the data — permanent, only after stop & remove

podman volume rm vaultwarden-data

Useful Tips

Ports < 1024 (e.g. 80, 443)

Rootless cannot open privileged ports. Solution:

sysctl net.ipv4.ip_unprivileged_port_start=80

Make persistent in /etc/sysctl.d/99-podman.conf.

Containers communicate via localhost

All containers in the pod share the same network namespace. Always use localhost, not container names.

# Correct (e.g. app → db):
localhost:5432

# Wrong (doesn't work in a pod):
db-container:5432

List open ports

Which ports are the running containers publishing? See the PORTS column:

podman ps

Custom DNS for the pod

Set a custom DNS server (e.g. local Pi-hole) in the generator under DNS server. Every format picks it up.

Set volume ownership

Fix permission errors by adjusting UID/GID in the user namespace:

podman unshare chown 1000:1000 /path/to/volume

SELinux volume labels

On SELinux systems (RHEL, Fedora) set the volume suffix:

/host/path:/container/path:Z   # private
/host/path:/container/path:z   # shared

List all volumes

podman volume ls
podman volume inspect <volume-name>

Volume backup

Back up data from a named volume:

podman run --rm \
  -v <volume-name>:/data:ro \
  -v $(pwd):/backup \
  busybox tar czf /backup/backup.tar.gz /data

Cleanup

Remove unused images, containers and volumes:

podman system prune -f        # containers + images
podman image prune -f         # untagged images only
podman volume prune -f        # unused volumes

Check for outdated images

List local images; auto-update only covers units with AutoUpdate= (Kube and Quadlet tabs):

podman images
podman auto-update --dry-run

All containers, including stopped ones

podman pod ps
podman ps -a

Resource usage

podman stats --no-stream

Customize this stack

Change ports, volumes, environment variables and more in the generator.

Open in Generator