This aims to be a third implementation of a 'toolbox' runtime. We take inspiration
from the original as well as distrobox and try to combine the image-baked approach
with the feature-completeness of distrobox to try to provide with the best of both
worlds: a performant, feature complete toolbox runtime that is self-contained and easy
to install.
- Compatible: we will strive to be compatible with
toolbxanddistroboxwherever possible. - Performant: we will keep performance at the forefront as we believe that performance can hamper usability and adoption of containerized technologies.
- Ephemeral: we will enable users to keep ephemeral workflows with a configuration-first mindset
- Simple: we will keep the application self-contained and easy to use, advanced features should not get in the way of common usage patterns.
- We will not be implementing anything that is not supported by the upstream podman project.
- We will not implement extensive sandboxing.
Currently this project is in very early stages of development. It doesn't actually do much of anything but it provides a toolbx-compatible CLI implementation. We are using rust so to build this project we can easily do it by following these steps:
- Clone the repo
- run
./util/cargo build - The resulting binary is in
target/debug/rtbox- it is a statically linked binary so you can move it wherever. - The only runtime dependency we have is that a podman socket must be reachable. (
systemctl --user enable --now podman.socket)
The ./util/cargo script is a wrapper that will fetch cargo from dockerhub and run the build process. It will also create a folder
${HOME}/.cache/cargo to cache crates for future builds.
We have a basic testing system with bats the Bash Automated Testing System. With the power of containers we just run our tests on
a containerized environment so it should be as easy as: ./test/debug.sh. This will build a container locally rtbox-tester:latest
which we use to run the testing.
This project is currently functionally useless but if you are interested I will leave a sample of the help messages:
$ rtbox --help
A rust implementation of toolbx
Usage: rtbox [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>
Commands:
create Create a rtbox container
rm Remove a rtbox container
rmi Remove a rtbox container image
run Execute a command inside a rtbox container
enter Enter into a new shell session inside a rtbox container
list List all rtbox containers
export Export an application, service or binary from a rtbox container to the host
help Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
Options:
-v, --verbose <VERBOSE>
-y, --assume-yes Automatically answer yes to all questions
--log-level <LOG_LEVEL> Set the logging level [default: info] [possible values: info, warn, error, debug, all]
-f, --format <FORMAT> Set the output format [default: human] [possible values: json, human]
--dry-run Do not actually execute API calls
-h, --help Print help information
- Inspiration taken from the toolbx project
- A lot of study conducted on distrobox project
- We naturally depend on the podman project for all our container-related needs
- And many thanks to the podman-api rust crate which makes the implementation of this whole thing easier
The code here is released under the GPLv3. You can find a copy of the license here or in the repo itself.
A: I was interested in learning rust and needed a problem domain where I already had experience. Neither toolbox nor distrobox fit my workflow quite well so I though I would take a stab at it.
A: Currently none as there no functionality. In the future I plan to implement features that aren't available in other implementations namely: a configuration file format for quickly replicating toolbox setups and a backup system are on my mind.
A: This is for my own reference :) - I have some thoughts explaining what I mean on this issue