rootbox

What is rootbox?

Rootbox is a tool for Linux and WSL that allows regular (unprivileged) users to deploy applications in a portable and reproducible way.

How does it work

Rootbox uses Linux kernel namespaces to create contained environments.

What is the difference between rootbox and Docker?

The focus of rootbox is to provide a tool that can be used to run applications without the need to install dependencies on the host system. Rootbox does NOT aim to provide full isolation between environemtns and the host, for such use cases please consider using Docker or Podman.

What is nedded to run rootbox?

• A Linux distrubtion or Linux on Windows with WSL (Kernel version >=4.18)
• Python 3.8, 3.9, 3.10 or 3.11
• Only 64-bit architectures are supported

What applications can I run with rootbox?

• images from the Linux Containers project (LXC).
• images from the Docker Hub registry (Docker Hub)

Supported package managers

How to install

pip install rootbox

How to use

List all the distributions available from the LXC project

# Check the list of supported distro names in the table above
rootbox lxc list

Run an in-memory single run container

Run a shell in an Alpine Linux container

rootbox run lxc:alpine:3.17

Check the apk version:

rootbox run lxc:alpine:3.17 "apk --version"

Create an in-memory multi run container

rootbox create lxc:alpine:3.17

Execute a command in a container

rootbox execute lxc:alpine:3.17 "apk --version"