####> This option file is used in: ####> podman machine init, machine set ####> If file is edited, make sure the changes ####> are applicable to all of those. #### **--user-mode-networking** This option can only be used for the WSL provider on Windows. On all other platforms this option is ignored and user mode networking will always be `true` there because these providers always depend on gvproxy (our user mode networking tool for the VMs) In contrast, The Windows/WSL backend defaults to `false`, and follows the standard WSL network setup. Changing this setting to `true` on Windows/WSL informs Podman to replace the WSL networking setup on start of this machine instance with a user-mode networking distribution. Since WSL shares the same kernel across distributions, all other running distributions reuses this network. Likewise, when the last machine instance with a `true` setting stops, the original networking setup is restored. In some VPN configurations the VPN may drop traffic from alternate network interfaces, including VM network devices. By enabling user-mode networking VPNs observe all podman machine traffic as coming from the host, bypassing the problem.