distrobox-assemble - Man Page

distrobox-assemble takes care of creating or destroying containers in batches, based on a manifest file. The manifest file by default is ./distrobox.ini, but can be specified using the --file flag.

distrobox assemble

--file:         path to the distrobox manifest/ini file
--replace/-R:       replace already existing distroboxes with matching names
--dry-run/-d:       only print the container manager command generated
--verbose/-v:       show more verbosity
--version/-V:       show version

This is an example manifest file to create two containers:

[ubuntu]
additional_packages=git vim tmux nodejs
image=ubuntu:latest
init=false
nvidia=false
pull=true
root=false
replace=true
start_now=false

# You can add comments using this #
[arch] # also inline comments are supported
additional_packages=git vim tmux nodejs
home=/tmp/home
image=archlinux:latest
init=false
start_now=true
init_hooks="touch /init-normal"
nvidia=true
pre_init_hooks="touch /pre-init"
pull=true
root=false
replace=false
volume=/tmp/test:/run/a /tmp/test:/run/b

Create

We can bring them up simply using

distrobox assemble create

If the file is called distrobox.ini and is in the same directory you’re launching the command, no further arguments are needed. You can specify a custom path for the file using

distrobox assemble create --file /my/custom/path.ini

Replace

By default, distrobox assemble will replace a container only if replace=true is specified in the manifest file.

In the example of the manifest above, the ubuntu container will always be replaced when running distrobox assemble create, while the arch container will not.

To force a replace for all containers in a manifest use the --replace flag

distrobox assemble create --replace [--file my/custom/path.ini]

Remove

We can bring down all the containers in a manifest file by simply doing

distrobox assemble rm

Or using a custom path for the ini file

distrobox assemble rm --file my/custom/path.ini

Test

You can always test what distrobox would do by using the --dry-run flag. This command will only print what commands distrobox would do without actually running them.

Available options

This is a list of available options with the corresponding type:

boolean options default to false if not specified. string options can be broken in multiple declarations additively in order to improve readability of the file:

[ubuntu]
image=ubuntu:latest
additional_packages=git vim tmux nodejs
additional_packages=htop iftop iotop
additional_packages=zsh fish

Advanced example

[tumbleweed_distrobox]
image=registry.opensuse.org/opensuse/distrobox
pull=true
additional_packages="acpi bash-completion findutils iproute iputils sensors inotify-tools unzip"
additional_packages="net-tools nmap openssl procps psmisc rsync man tig tmux tree vim htop xclip yt-dlp"
additional_packages="git git-credential-libsecret"
additional_packages="patterns-devel-base-devel_basis"
additional_packages="ShellCheck ansible-lint clang clang-tools codespell ctags desktop-file-utils gcc golang jq python3"
additional_packages="python3-bashate python3-flake8 python3-mypy python3-pipx python3-pycodestyle python3-pyflakes python3-pylint python3-python-lsp-server python3-rstcheck python3-yapf python3-yamllint rustup shfmt"
additional_packages="kubernetes-client helm"
init_hooks=GOPATH="${HOME}/.local/share/system-go" GOBIN=/usr/local/bin go install github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/cmd/golangci-lint@latest
init_hooks=GOPATH="${HOME}/.local/share/system-go" GOBIN=/usr/local/bin go install github.com/onsi/ginkgo/v2/ginkgo@latest
init_hooks=GOPATH="${HOME}/.local/share/system-go" GOBIN=/usr/local/bin go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports@latest
init_hooks=GOPATH="${HOME}/.local/share/system-go" GOBIN=/usr/local/bin go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest
init_hooks=GOPATH="${HOME}/.local/share/system-go" GOBIN=/usr/local/bin go install sigs.k8s.io/kind@latest
init_hooks=ln -sf /usr/bin/distrobox-host-exec /usr/local/bin/conmon
init_hooks=ln -sf /usr/bin/distrobox-host-exec /usr/local/bin/crun
init_hooks=ln -sf /usr/bin/distrobox-host-exec /usr/local/bin/docker
init_hooks=ln -sf /usr/bin/distrobox-host-exec /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
init_hooks=ln -sf /usr/bin/distrobox-host-exec /usr/local/bin/flatpak
init_hooks=ln -sf /usr/bin/distrobox-host-exec /usr/local/bin/podman
init_hooks=ln -sf /usr/bin/distrobox-host-exec /usr/local/bin/xdg-open