In this article, we will see how to solve "podman-machine-default_ready.sock: connect: no such file or directory" error which you might get sometimes whenever you try to start default machine using podman machine start command. It is possible that when you freshly installed podman in your System and try to initialize and start a vm then you might run into some error. This is one such error faced by many while trying to start the vm. In my case, this error was showing on my MacBook machine however it is possible that the same error could show in other Unix/Linux system as well.

Solved "podman-machine-default_ready.sock: connect: no such file or directory"

Also Read: Solved "Error while dialing dial unix /var/run/dockershim.sock"

So as i stated earlier, when I tried to start default machine using podman machine start command then I noticed Error: dial unix /var/folders/c4/1bhbmy092gzcnbktg334mry9000gp/T/podman/podman-machine-default_ready.sock: connect: no such file or directory on the output as shown below.

[cyberithub@mac1066 ~ % podman machine start 
Starting machine "podman-machine-default"
WARN[0000] podman helper is installed, but was not able to claim the global docker sock
Waiting for VM ...
Error: dial unix /var/folders/c4/1bhbmy092gzcnbktg334mry9000gp/T/podman/podman-machine-default_ready.sock: connect: no such file or directory

Not just above error but when I tried using podman images command to list out the images then I noticed below failed to connect: ssh: handshake failed error which was kind of expected after facing podman-machine-default_ready.sock: connect: no such file or directory error. This is simply because default machine was not initialized properly with podman machine init command which failed to create podman-machine-default_ready.sock file.

Another reason for the error could be that you might have denied the incoming ssh connections when asked during the machine initialization. This was the case happened with me. When it asked me to allow the incoming ssh connection then I clicked on deny instead of allow hence the error.

[cyberithub@mac1066 ~ % podman images
Error: failed to connect: ssh: handshake failed: read tcp 127.0.0.1:52515->127.0.0.1:52453: read: connection reset by peer

So to solve the above error you need to first stop the default machine by using podman machine stop command as shown below.

[cyberithub@mac1066 ~ % podman machine stop
Waiting for VM to exit...
Machine "podman-machine-default" stopped successfully

Then remove the VM by using podman machine rm command as shown below. This will remove all the file and contents related to the default machine.

[cyberithub@mac1066 ~ % podman machine rm

The following files will be deleted:

/Users/cyberithub/.ssh/podman-machine-default
/Users/cyberithub/.ssh/podman-machine-default.pub
/Users/cyberithub/.config/containers/podman/machine/qemu/podman-machine-default.ign
/Users/cyberithub/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/qemu/podman-machine-default_fedora-coreos-38.20230414.2.0-qemu.x86_64.qcow2
/Users/cyberithub/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/qemu/podman.sock
/Users/cyberithub/.config/containers/podman/machine/qemu/podman-machine-default.json

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Finally, reinitialize the machine with podman machine init command as shown below. After this, if you now run podman machine start command again then it should start the machine without any error.

[cyberithub@mac1066 ~ % podman machine init
Extracting compressed file
Image resized.
Machine init complete
To start your machine run:

        podman machine start

This solved the error in my system. Hope it works for you as well. However in some cases, it is possible that the above solution does not work for you. In that case, I would request you to please let me know in the comment box so that we can work together to solve your error.