% podman-unshare 1
podman-unshare - Run a command inside of a modified user namespace
podman unshare [options] [command]
Launches a process (by default, $SHELL) in a new user namespace. The user
namespace is configured so that the invoking user's UID and primary GID appear
to be UID 0 and GID 0, respectively. Any ranges which match that user and
group in /etc/subuid
and /etc/subgid
are also mapped in as themselves with the
help of the newuidmap(1) and newgidmap(1) helpers.
podman unshare is useful for troubleshooting unprivileged operations and for manually clearing storage and other data related to images and containers.
It is also useful to use the podman mount command. If an unprivileged user wants to mount and work with a container, then they need to execute podman unshare. Executing podman mount fails for unprivileged users unless the user is running inside a podman unshare session.
The unshare session defines two environment variables:
- CONTAINERS_GRAPHROOT: the path to the persistent container's data.
- CONTAINERS_RUNROOT: the path to the volatile container's data.
IMPORTANT: This command is not available with the remote Podman client.
Print usage statement
Join the rootless network namespace used for netavark networking. It can be used to connect to a rootless container via IP address (bridge networking). This is otherwise not possible from the host network namespace.
The exit code from podman unshare
gives information about why the container
failed to run or why it exited. When podman unshare
commands exit with a non-zero code,
the exit codes follow the chroot
standard, see below:
125 The error is with podman itself
$ podman unshare --foo; echo $?
Error: unknown flag: --foo
125
126 Executing a contained command and the command cannot be invoked
$ podman unshare /etc; echo $?
Error: fork/exec /etc: permission denied
126
127 Executing a contained command and the command cannot be found
$ podman unshare foo; echo $?
Error: fork/exec /usr/bin/bogus: no such file or directory
127
Exit code contained command exit code
$ podman unshare /bin/sh -c 'exit 3'; echo $?
3
$ podman unshare id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root),65534(nobody)
$ podman unshare cat /proc/self/uid_map /proc/self/gid_map
0 1000 1
1 10000 65536
0 1000 1
1 10000 65536
$ podman unshare --rootless-netns ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: tap0: <BROADCAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65520 qdisc fq_codel state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether aa:8c:0b:73:98:f6 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 10.0.2.100/24 brd 10.0.2.255 scope global tap0
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 fd00::a88c:bff:fe73:98f6/64 scope global dynamic mngtmpaddr
valid_lft 86389sec preferred_lft 14389sec
inet6 fe80::a88c:bff:fe73:98f6/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
podman(1), podman-mount(1), namespaces(7), newuidmap(1), newgidmap(1), user_namespaces(7)