The fedora-toolbox package
Find a file
Debarshi Ray 5ff7fd3597 Ensure that the useradd(8), etc. manuals are available
The shadow-utils package has always been part of the fedora base image.
It's explicitly listed in extra-packages as a safeguard against losing
useradd(8) and usermod(8) by mistake because they are needed by the
entry point of a Toolbx container [1].  Hence, the need to restore the
shadow-utils documentation that was stripped out in the base image.

Note that the fedora-toolbox OCI image for Fedora 39 onwards is no
longer built using OpenShift Build Service from the Dockerfile here.
It's now being built using Image Factory from fedora-kickstarts and
pungi-fedora [2], as part of the ToolbxReleaseBlocker Change [3] for
Fedora 39.

Hence this is only for the sake of completeness.

[1] Toolbx commit c6772f0f112e8004
    c6772f0f11

[2] https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/
    https://pagure.io/pungi-fedora/

[3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/ToolbxReleaseBlocker

https://github.com/containers/toolbox/pull/1394
2023-10-27 20:30:14 +02:00
Dockerfile Attempt to fix the use of ARG 2023-03-01 12:42:54 +01:00
ensure-files Ensure that the useradd(8), etc. manuals are available 2023-10-27 20:30:14 +02:00
extra-packages Add psmisc 2023-10-20 12:08:59 +02:00
missing-docs Ensure that the useradd(8), etc. manuals are available 2023-10-27 20:30:14 +02:00
README.md Synchronize with upstream 2023-02-14 23:11:23 +01:00

Toolbox is a tool for Linux, which allows the use of interactive command line environments for development and troubleshooting the host operating system, without having to install software on the host. It is built on top of Podman and other standard container technologies from OCI.

Toolbox environments have seamless access to the user's home directory, the Wayland and X11 sockets, networking (including Avahi), removable devices (like USB sticks), systemd journal, SSH agent, D-Bus, ulimits, /dev and the udev database, etc..

This is particularly useful on OSTree based operating systems like Fedora CoreOS and Silverblue. The intention of these systems is to discourage installation of software on the host, and instead install software as (or in) containers — they mostly don't even have package managers like DNF or YUM. This makes it difficult to set up a development environment or troubleshoot the operating system in the usual way.

Toolbox solves this problem by providing a fully mutable container within which one can install their favourite development and troubleshooting tools, editors and SDKs. For example, it's possible to do yum install ansible without affecting the base operating system.

However, this tool doesn't require using an OSTree based system. It works equally well on Fedora Workstation and Server, and that's a useful way to incrementally adopt containerization.

The toolbox environment is based on an OCI image. On Fedora this is the fedora-toolbox image. This image is used to create a toolbox container that offers the interactive command line environment.

Note that Toolbox makes no promise about security beyond what's already available in the usual command line environment on the host that everybody is familiar with.

Installation & Use

See our guides on installing & getting started with Toolbox and Linux distro support.