Podman

Podman can run rootless containers and be a drop-in replacement for Docker.

Install and configure podman with NixOS service configuration

{ pkgs, ... }:
{
  virtualisation = {
    podman = {
      enable = true;

      # Create a `docker` alias for podman, to use it as a drop-in replacement
      dockerCompat = true;
    };
  };
}

Use Podman within nix-shell

https://gist.github.com/adisbladis/187204cb772800489ee3dac4acdd9947

Note that rootless podman requires newuidmap (from shadow). If you're not on NixOS, this can't not be supplied by the Nix package 'shadow' since setuid/setgid programs are not currently supported by Nix.

Run Podman containers as systemd services

{
  virtualisation.oci-containers.backend = "podman";
  virtualisation.oci-containers.containers = {
    container-name = {
      image = "container-image";
      autoStart = true;
      ports = [ "127.0.0.1:1234:1234" ];
    };
  };
}