So far, it seems it’s a bit easier to do with Podman / “standard OCI containers” because they’re rootless and get stored in my home directory. But the solution I keep seeing is to move the directory and then symlink or mount bind the folder. I do the latter so that podman continues to work when that external drive isn’t connected.
This does actually work, but I really don’t like it. Why isn’t there a way to store a container entirely in a specific location and then run straight from that location?
The alternative is to provide Podman a custom storage.conf for a specific location. But that too is a “permanent” change. I would love to know a cleaner solution to portable containers!