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authorLennart Poettering <lennart@poettering.net>2011-03-15 20:51:41 +0100
committerLennart Poettering <lennart@poettering.net>2011-03-15 20:51:59 +0100
commit8f7a3c1402a8de36b2c63935358a53510d2fe7c1 (patch)
treeba1478feae58e92d591ff9ca7c249b4fec805d24 /man
parentb9a8e638ed520bc9b528a1e8539ca4b9026861b4 (diff)
man: document systemd-nspawn
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+<?xml version='1.0'?> <!--*-nxml-*-->
+<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
+ "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
+
+<!--
+ This file is part of systemd.
+
+ Copyright 2010 Lennart Poettering
+
+ systemd is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+ under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+ the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
+ (at your option) any later version.
+
+ systemd is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
+ WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
+ General Public License for more details.
+
+ You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+ along with systemd; If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+-->
+
+<refentry id="systemd-nspawn">
+
+ <refentryinfo>
+ <title>systemd-nspawn</title>
+ <productname>systemd</productname>
+
+ <authorgroup>
+ <author>
+ <contrib>Developer</contrib>
+ <firstname>Lennart</firstname>
+ <surname>Poettering</surname>
+ <email>lennart@poettering.net</email>
+ </author>
+ </authorgroup>
+ </refentryinfo>
+
+ <refmeta>
+ <refentrytitle>systemd-nspawn</refentrytitle>
+ <manvolnum>1</manvolnum>
+ </refmeta>
+
+ <refnamediv>
+ <refname>systemd-nspawn</refname>
+ <refpurpose>Spawn a namespace container for debugging, testing and building</refpurpose>
+ </refnamediv>
+
+ <refsynopsisdiv>
+ <cmdsynopsis>
+ <command>systemd-nspawn <arg choice="opt" rep="repeat">OPTIONS</arg> <arg choice="opt">COMMAND</arg> <arg choice="opt" rep="repeat">ARGS</arg></command>
+ </cmdsynopsis>
+ </refsynopsisdiv>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Description</title>
+
+ <para><command>systemd-nspawn</command> may be used to
+ run a command or OS in a light-weight namespace
+ container. In many ways it is similar to
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>chroot</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
+ but more powerful since it fully virtualizes the file
+ system hierachy, as well as the process tree, the
+ various IPC subsystems and the host and domain
+ name.</para>
+
+ <para><command>systemd-nspawn</command> limits access
+ to various kernel interfaces in the container to
+ read-only, such as <filename>/sys</filename>,
+ <filename>/proc/sys</filename> or
+ <filename>/selinux</filename>. Network interfaces and
+ the system clock may not be changed from within the
+ container. Device nodes may not be created. The host
+ system cannot be rebooted and kernel modules may not
+ be loaded from within the container.</para>
+
+ <para>Note that even though these security precautions
+ are taken <command>systemd-nspawn</command> is not
+ suitable for secure container setups. Many of the
+ security features may be circumvented and are hence
+ primarily useful to avoid accidental changes to the
+ host system from the container. The intended use of
+ this program is debugging and testing as well as
+ building of packages, distributions and software
+ involved with boot and systems management.</para>
+
+ <para>In contrast to
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>chroot</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
+ <command>systemd-nspawn</command> may be used to boot
+ full Linux-based operating systems in a
+ container.</para>
+
+ <para>Use a tool like
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>debootstrap</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry> or <citerefentry><refentrytitle>mock</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
+ to set up an OS directory tree suitable as file system
+ hierarchy for <command>systemd-nspawn</command> containers.</para>
+
+ <para>Note that <command>systemd-nspawn</command> will
+ mount file systems private to the container to
+ <filename>/dev</filename>,
+ <filename>/dev/.run</filename> and similar. These will
+ not be visible outside of the container, and their
+ contents will be lost when the container exits.</para>
+
+ <para>Note that running two
+ <command>systemd-nspawn</command> containers from the
+ same directory tree will not make processes in them
+ see each other. The PID namespace seperation of the
+ two containers is complete and the containers will
+ share very few runtime objects except for the
+ underlying file system.</para>
+ </refsect1>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Options</title>
+
+ <para>If no arguments are passed the container is set
+ up and a shell started in it, otherwise the passed
+ command and arguments are executed in it. The
+ following options are understood:</para>
+
+ <variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><option>--help</option></term>
+
+ <listitem><para>Prints a short help
+ text and exits.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><option>--directory=</option></term>
+ <term><option>--D</option></term>
+
+ <listitem><para>Directory to use as
+ file system root for the namespace
+ container. If omitted the current
+ directory will be
+ used.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ </variablelist>
+
+ </refsect1>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Example 1</title>
+
+ <programlisting># debootstrap --arch=amd64 unstable debian-tree/
+# systemd-nspawn -D debian-tree/</programlisting>
+
+ <para>This installs a minimal Debian unstable
+ distribution into the directory
+ <filename>debian-tree/</filename> and then spawns a
+ shell in a namespace container in it.</para>
+
+ </refsect1>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Example 2</title>
+
+ <programlisting># mock --init
+# systemd-nspawn -D /var/lib/mock/fedora-rawhide-x86_64/root/ /bin/systemd systemd.log_level=debug</programlisting>
+
+ <para>This installs a minimal Fedora distribution into
+ a subdirectory of <filename>/var/lib/mock/</filename>
+ and then boots an OS in a namespace container in it,
+ with systemd as init system, configured for debug
+ logging.</para>
+
+ </refsect1>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Exit status</title>
+
+ <para>The exit code of the program executed in the
+ container is returned.</para>
+ </refsect1>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>See Also</title>
+ <para>
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>chroot</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>debootstrap</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>mock</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
+ </para>
+ </refsect1>
+
+</refentry>