diff --git a/.github/workflows/build-notebooks-TEMPLATE.yaml b/.github/workflows/build-notebooks-TEMPLATE.yaml
index f29ae1f23..866716647 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/build-notebooks-TEMPLATE.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/build-notebooks-TEMPLATE.yaml
@@ -75,10 +75,10 @@ jobs:
       - name: Configure Podman
         run: |
           mkdir -p $HOME/.config/containers/
-          mkdir -p $HOME/.local/share/containers/tmp
           cp containers.conf $HOME/.config/containers/containers.conf
           cp storage.conf $HOME/.config/containers/storage.conf
           # should at least reset storage when touching storage.conf
+          mkdir -p /mnt/containers/
           podman system reset --force
 
       - run: "make ${{ inputs.target }}"
diff --git a/containers.conf b/containers.conf
index d59669494..6f9a8c43e 100644
--- a/containers.conf
+++ b/containers.conf
@@ -4,12 +4,12 @@
 
 [engine]
 # needed for reliability
-retry=42
+retry=100
 # supposedly these images are faster to pull
 compression_format="zstd:chunked"
 compression_level=6
 # defaults to /var/tmp, which is small
-image_copy_tmp_dir="/home/runner/.local/share/containers/tmp"
+image_copy_tmp_dir="storage"
 
 [machine]
 
diff --git a/storage.conf b/storage.conf
index ac2475f4f..24a181ec0 100644
--- a/storage.conf
+++ b/storage.conf
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 
 [storage]
 driver="overlay"
+rootless_storage_path="/mnt/containers"
 
 [storage.options]
 # https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/faster-container-image-pulls