maya-container

Autodesk Maya 2026 in a rootless podman container — install it once, run it like a normal desktop app on any Linux machine with podman.

Modeled on mottosso/docker-maya.

Requirements

• podman 4.3 or newer
• skopeo (optional — lets launches detect and pull a newer image from the registry)
• A Maya subscription and an Autodesk account (used once, at first sign-in)
• A Linux desktop session

Quick start

./run-maya.sh

This pulls the image if needed (~16 GB), starts Maya on your display, and mounts your Documents/Downloads/Videos/Pictures/Desktop folders into the container.

On the very first launch a browser window opens for the Autodesk sign-in. Sign in with the account holding your Maya subscription; if Firefox asks about opening an adskidmgr:// link, allow it. Maya starts after that.

To add a launcher to your app menu:

make desktop

Where your data lives

All Maya state persists in ~/mayadata and survives restarts:

Directory	What it holds
mayadata/maya/	your Maya projects and preferences
mayadata/token/	sign-in token, tracking-consent choices, Firefox profile, Autodesk app config

Saving to Documents/Downloads/Videos/Pictures/Desktop writes to your real home directory.

Troubleshooting

• Stuck at "open Identity Manager": the sign-in callback goes through a scheme handler inside the container; it is set up automatically. If the browser shows a callback page that goes nowhere, retry the launch.
• Licensing error 3074 ("No default web browser"): stale sign-in state — a retry fixes it (the launcher resets it automatically).
• Licensing error 3091: the container ran as root. Always launch via run-maya.sh, which runs Maya as a regular user mapped to your account.
• Extra folders (project references, assets): pass them with MAYA_EXTRA_MOUNTS=/path/on/host:/home/maya/path ./run-maya.sh.
• SELinux-enforcing hosts: handled automatically (--security-opt label=disable). Don't remove it.
• Headless machines: no display is fine for mayapy/render — Maya falls back to a virtual display with software GL. Sign-in needs a real display.

How it works

The image is AlmaLinux 9 plus the contents of Autodesk's official Linux installer, with Maya and Arnold registered with Autodesk's licensing service at build time. At launch, a small script maps your display, GPU, and folders into the container and runs Maya as a non-root user that maps to your own account, so files it creates are owned by you. Sign-in happens in a browser inside the container and the token is kept in an encrypted keyring; Autodesk asks for a refresh about every 30 days. Everything else is plain podman — no daemon, no root, no host changes beyond ~/mayadata.

Building the image yourself, and the CI that builds it, is documented in BUILDING.md.