toolbox-run - Man Page

• Run a command inside a specific toolbox container: toolbox run --container container_name command
• Run a command inside a toolbox container for a specific release of a distribution: toolbox run --distro distribution --release release command
• Run emacs inside a toolbox container using the default image for Fedora 39: toolbox run --distro fedora --release f39 emacs

tldr.sh

toolbox run [--container NAME | -c NAME]
           [--distro DISTRO | -d DISTRO]
           [--preserve-fds N]
           [--release RELEASE | -r RELEASE]
           [COMMAND]

Runs a command inside an existing toolbox container. The container should have been created using the toolbox create command.

On Fedora, the default container is known as fedora-toolbox-N, where N is the release of the host. A specific container can be selected using the --container option.

A toolbox container is an OCI container. Therefore, toolbox run is analogous to a podman start followed by a podman exec.

The following options are understood:

--container

NAME, -c NAME

Run command inside a toolbox container with the given NAME. This is useful when there are multiple toolbox containers created from the same image, or entirely customized containers created from custom-built images.

--distro

DISTRO, -d DISTRO

Run command inside a toolbox container for a different operating system DISTRO than the host. Has to be coupled with --release unless the selected DISTRO matches the host system.

--preserve-fds

N

Pass down to command N additional file descriptors (in addition to 0, 1, 2). The total number of file descriptors will be 3+N.

--release

RELEASE, -r RELEASE

Run command inside a toolbox container for a different operating system RELEASE than the host.

The exit code gives information about why the command within the container failed to run or why it exited.

1 There was an internal error in Toolbox

125 There was an internal error in Podman

126 The run command could not be invoked

$ toolbox run /etc; echo $?
/bin/sh: line 1: /etc: Is a directory
/bin/sh: line 1: exec: /etc: cannot execute: Is a directory
Error: failed to invoke command /etc in container fedora-toolbox-36
126

127 The run command cannot be found or the working directory does not exist

$ toolbox run foo; echo $?
/bin/sh: line 1: exec: foo: not found
Error: command foo not found in container fedora-toolbox-36
127

Exit code The run command exit code

$ toolbox run false; echo $?
1

toolbox(1), podman(1), podman-exec(1), podman-start(1)

toolbox(1), toolbox-enter(1).