Podroid
Introduction: Rootless Podman for Android — run Linux containers on your phone
Tags:
Run Linux containers and a full Linux desktop on your Android phone. No root.
A real Alpine Linux VM with its own kernel - not a chroot or proot trick - so Podman, Docker and LXC behave exactly like they do on a server.
Website · Documentation · Download APK
![]() Home |
![]() Running |
![]() Terminal |
![]() Themes & fonts |
What you get
- Podman, Docker and LXC - pre-installed, ready the moment it boots
- A real VM - Alpine Linux on a custom kernel via QEMU, or hardware-accelerated AVF on supported pKVM devices
- In-app terminal - full xterm-256color, 122 color themes, 13 fonts, live resize
- X11 desktop - run GUI Linux apps in a built-in viewer with touch, keyboard, mouse and audio
- USB passthrough, SSH, port forwarding and a guest-to-Android bridge
- English and 中文, no root, any arm64 device on Android 9+
Quick start
- Download the APK and install it.
- Tap Start VM, wait for Ready!, open the terminal.
# rootless containers, straight away
podman run --rm alpine echo "hello from a container"
docker run -d -p 8080:80 nginx
# expose that container to your phone and LAN, right from the VM shell
podroid-forward add 8080 8080 tcp # TCP or UDP, on both the QEMU and AVF backends
curl http://<phone-ip>:8080
# SSH in from your laptop (enable SSH in the setup wizard or Settings)
ssh root@<phone-ip> -p 9922 # password: podroid
Setup, the two backends, networking, the X11 viewer and troubleshooting all live in the documentation.
Build
git clone https://github.com/ExTV/Podroid.git
cd Podroid
./build-all.sh all # kernel, rootfs, QEMU and APK (needs Docker + Android SDK/NDK)
Per-component builds and toolchain details: CONTRIBUTING.md.
Contributing
Contributions of every size are welcome: bug reports, kernel-config tweaks, new themes, UI polish, X11 input fixes, anything.
- Pull requests: read CONTRIBUTING.md first. Keep changes scoped, run
./build-all.sh testbefore pushing, and explain why in the PR description. - Bug reports: open an issue with your device and Android version, a short repro, and the diagnostic log (Settings → Export Diagnostic Log in the app).
Credits
| QEMU | Machine emulation |
| Termux | Terminal emulator engine |
| Alpine Linux | The guest distribution |
Full list in CREDITS.md.
License
GPLv2. If Podroid is useful to you, a star helps other people find it.




