Provided by: util-linux_2.38.1-4ubuntu1_amd64 
NAME
unshare - run program in new namespaces
SYNOPSIS
unshare [options] [program [arguments]]
DESCRIPTION
The unshare command creates new namespaces (as specified by the command-line options
described below) and then executes the specified program. If program is not given, then
"${SHELL}" is run (default: /bin/sh).
By default, a new namespace persists only as long as it has member processes. A new
namespace can be made persistent even when it has no member processes by bind mounting
/proc/pid/ns/type files to a filesystem path. A namespace that has been made persistent in
this way can subsequently be entered with nsenter(1) even after the program terminates
(except PID namespaces where a permanently running init process is required). Once a
persistent namespace is no longer needed, it can be unpersisted by using umount(8) to
remove the bind mount. See the EXAMPLES section for more details.
unshare since util-linux version 2.36 uses /proc/[pid]/ns/pid_for_children and
/proc/[pid]/ns/time_for_children files for persistent PID and TIME namespaces. This change
requires Linux kernel 4.17 or newer.
The following types of namespaces can be created with unshare:
mount namespace
Mounting and unmounting filesystems will not affect the rest of the system, except for
filesystems which are explicitly marked as shared (with mount --make-shared; see
/proc/self/mountinfo or findmnt -o+PROPAGATION for the shared flags). For further
details, see mount_namespaces(7).
unshare since util-linux version 2.27 automatically sets propagation to private in a
new mount namespace to make sure that the new namespace is really unshared. It’s
possible to disable this feature with option --propagation unchanged. Note that
private is the kernel default.
UTS namespace
Setting hostname or domainname will not affect the rest of the system. For further
details, see uts_namespaces(7).
IPC namespace
The process will have an independent namespace for POSIX message queues as well as
System V message queues, semaphore sets and shared memory segments. For further
details, see ipc_namespaces(7).
network namespace
The process will have independent IPv4 and IPv6 stacks, IP routing tables, firewall
rules, the /proc/net and /sys/class/net directory trees, sockets, etc. For further
details, see network_namespaces(7).
PID namespace
Children will have a distinct set of PID-to-process mappings from their parent. For
further details, see pid_namespaces(7).
cgroup namespace
The process will have a virtualized view of /proc/self/cgroup, and new cgroup mounts
will be rooted at the namespace cgroup root. For further details, see
cgroup_namespaces(7).
user namespace
The process will have a distinct set of UIDs, GIDs and capabilities. For further
details, see user_namespaces(7).
time namespace
The process can have a distinct view of CLOCK_MONOTONIC and/or CLOCK_BOOTTIME which
can be changed using /proc/self/timens_offsets. For further details, see
time_namespaces(7).
OPTIONS
-i, --ipc[=file]
Create a new IPC namespace. If file is specified, then the namespace is made
persistent by creating a bind mount at file.
-m, --mount[=file]
Create a new mount namespace. If file is specified, then the namespace is made
persistent by creating a bind mount at file. Note that file must be located on a mount
whose propagation type is not shared (or an error results). Use the command findmnt
-o+PROPAGATION when not sure about the current setting. See also the examples below.
-n, --net[=file]
Create a new network namespace. If file is specified, then the namespace is made
persistent by creating a bind mount at file.
-p, --pid[=file]
Create a new PID namespace. If file is specified, then the namespace is made
persistent by creating a bind mount at file. (Creation of a persistent PID namespace
will fail if the --fork option is not also specified.)
See also the --fork and --mount-proc options.
-u, --uts[=file]
Create a new UTS namespace. If file is specified, then the namespace is made
persistent by creating a bind mount at file.
-U, --user[=file]
Create a new user namespace. If file is specified, then the namespace is made
persistent by creating a bind mount at file.
-C, --cgroup[=file]
Create a new cgroup namespace. If file is specified, then the namespace is made
persistent by creating a bind mount at file.
-T, --time[=file]
Create a new time namespace. If file is specified, then the namespace is made
persistent by creating a bind mount at file. The --monotonic and --boottime options
can be used to specify the corresponding offset in the time namespace.
-f, --fork
Fork the specified program as a child process of unshare rather than running it
directly. This is useful when creating a new PID namespace. Note that when unshare is
waiting for the child process, then it ignores SIGINT and SIGTERM and does not forward
any signals to the child. It is necessary to send signals to the child process.
--keep-caps
When the --user option is given, ensure that capabilities granted in the user
namespace are preserved in the child process.
--kill-child[=signame]
When unshare terminates, have signame be sent to the forked child process. Combined
with --pid this allows for an easy and reliable killing of the entire process tree
below unshare. If not given, signame defaults to SIGKILL. This option implies --fork.
--mount-proc[=mountpoint]
Just before running the program, mount the proc filesystem at mountpoint (default is
/proc). This is useful when creating a new PID namespace. It also implies creating a
new mount namespace since the /proc mount would otherwise mess up existing programs on
the system. The new proc filesystem is explicitly mounted as private (with
MS_PRIVATE|MS_REC).
--map-user=uid|name
Run the program only after the current effective user ID has been mapped to uid. If
this option is specified multiple times, the last occurrence takes precedence. This
option implies --user.
--map-users=outeruid,inneruid,count|auto
Run the program only after the block of user IDs of size count beginning at outeruid
has been mapped to the block of user IDs beginning at inneruid. This mapping is
created with newuidmap(1). If the range of user IDs overlaps with the mapping
specified by --map-user, then a "hole" will be removed from the mapping. This may
result in the highest user ID of the mapping not being mapped. The special value auto
will map the first block of user IDs owned by the effective user from /etc/subuid to a
block starting at user ID 0. If this option is specified multiple times, the last
occurrence takes precedence. This option implies --user.
--map-group=gid|name
Run the program only after the current effective group ID has been mapped to gid. If
this option is specified multiple times, the last occurrence takes precedence. This
option implies --setgroups=deny and --user.
--map-groups=outergid,innergid,count|auto
Run the program only after the block of group IDs of size count beginning at outergid
has been mapped to the block of group IDs beginning at innergid. This mapping is
created with newgidmap(1). If the range of group IDs overlaps with the mapping
specified by --map-group, then a "hole" will be removed from the mapping. This may
result in the highest group ID of the mapping not being mapped. The special value auto
will map the first block of user IDs owned by the effective user from /etc/subgid to a
block starting at group ID 0. If this option is specified multiple times, the last
occurrence takes precedence. This option implies --user.
--map-auto
Map the first block of user IDs owned by the effective user from /etc/subuid to a
block starting at user ID 0. In the same manner, also map the first block of group IDs
owned by the effective group from /etc/subgid to a block starting at group ID 0. This
option is intended to handle the common case where the first block of subordinate user
and group IDs can map the whole user and group ID space. This option is equivalent to
specifying --map-users=auto and --map-groups=auto.
-r, --map-root-user
Run the program only after the current effective user and group IDs have been mapped
to the superuser UID and GID in the newly created user namespace. This makes it
possible to conveniently gain capabilities needed to manage various aspects of the
newly created namespaces (such as configuring interfaces in the network namespace or
mounting filesystems in the mount namespace) even when run unprivileged. As a mere
convenience feature, it does not support more sophisticated use cases, such as mapping
multiple ranges of UIDs and GIDs. This option implies --setgroups=deny and --user.
This option is equivalent to --map-user=0 --map-group=0.
-c, --map-current-user
Run the program only after the current effective user and group IDs have been mapped
to the same UID and GID in the newly created user namespace. This option implies
--setgroups=deny and --user. This option is equivalent to --map-user=$(id -ru)
--map-group=$(id -rg).
--propagation private|shared|slave|unchanged
Recursively set the mount propagation flag in the new mount namespace. The default is
to set the propagation to private. It is possible to disable this feature with the
argument unchanged. The option is silently ignored when the mount namespace (--mount)
is not requested.
--setgroups allow|deny
Allow or deny the setgroups(2) system call in a user namespace.
To be able to call setgroups(2), the calling process must at least have CAP_SETGID.
But since Linux 3.19 a further restriction applies: the kernel gives permission to
call setgroups(2) only after the GID map (/proc/pid*/gid_map*) has been set. The GID
map is writable by root when setgroups(2) is enabled (i.e., allow, the default), and
the GID map becomes writable by unprivileged processes when setgroups(2) is
permanently disabled (with deny).
-R, --root=dir
run the command with root directory set to dir.
-w, --wd=dir
change working directory to dir.
-S, --setuid uid
Set the user ID which will be used in the entered namespace.
-G, --setgid gid
Set the group ID which will be used in the entered namespace and drop supplementary
groups.
--monotonic offset
Set the offset of CLOCK_MONOTONIC which will be used in the entered time namespace.
This option requires unsharing a time namespace with --time.
--boottime offset
Set the offset of CLOCK_BOOTTIME which will be used in the entered time namespace.
This option requires unsharing a time namespace with --time.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Print version and exit.
NOTES
The proc and sysfs filesystems mounting as root in a user namespace have to be restricted
so that a less privileged user cannot get more access to sensitive files that a more
privileged user made unavailable. In short the rule for proc and sysfs is as close to a
bind mount as possible.
EXAMPLES
The following command creates a PID namespace, using --fork to ensure that the executed
command is performed in a child process that (being the first process in the namespace)
has PID 1. The --mount-proc option ensures that a new mount namespace is also
simultaneously created and that a new proc(5) filesystem is mounted that contains
information corresponding to the new PID namespace. When the readlink(1) command
terminates, the new namespaces are automatically torn down.
# unshare --fork --pid --mount-proc readlink /proc/self
1
As an unprivileged user, create a new user namespace where the user’s credentials are
mapped to the root IDs inside the namespace:
$ id -u; id -g
1000
1000
$ unshare --user --map-root-user \
sh -c ''whoami; cat /proc/self/uid_map /proc/self/gid_map''
root
0 1000 1
0 1000 1
As an unprivileged user, create a user namespace where the first 65536 IDs are all mapped,
and the user’s credentials are mapped to the root IDs inside the namespace. The map is
determined by the subordinate IDs assigned in subuid(5) and subgid(5). Demonstrate this
mapping by creating a file with user ID 1 and group ID 1. For brevity, only the user ID
mappings are shown:
$ id -u
1000
$ cat /etc/subuid
1000:100000:65536
$ unshare --user --map-auto --map-root-user
# id -u
0
# cat /proc/self/uid_map
0 1000 1
1 100000 65535
# touch file; chown 1:1 file
# ls -ln --time-style=+ file
-rw-r--r-- 1 1 1 0 file
# exit
$ ls -ln --time-style=+ file
-rw-r--r-- 1 100000 100000 0 file
The first of the following commands creates a new persistent UTS namespace and modifies
the hostname as seen in that namespace. The namespace is then entered with nsenter(1) in
order to display the modified hostname; this step demonstrates that the UTS namespace
continues to exist even though the namespace had no member processes after the unshare
command terminated. The namespace is then destroyed by removing the bind mount.
# touch /root/uts-ns
# unshare --uts=/root/uts-ns hostname FOO
# nsenter --uts=/root/uts-ns hostname
FOO
# umount /root/uts-ns
The following commands establish a persistent mount namespace referenced by the bind mount
/root/namespaces/mnt. In order to ensure that the creation of that bind mount succeeds,
the parent directory (/root/namespaces) is made a bind mount whose propagation type is not
shared.
# mount --bind /root/namespaces /root/namespaces
# mount --make-private /root/namespaces
# touch /root/namespaces/mnt
# unshare --mount=/root/namespaces/mnt
The following commands demonstrate the use of the --kill-child option when creating a PID
namespace, in order to ensure that when unshare is killed, all of the processes within the
PID namespace are killed.
# set +m # Don't print job status messages
# unshare --pid --fork --mount-proc --kill-child -- \
bash --norc -c ''(sleep 555 &) && (ps a &) && sleep 999'' &
[1] 53456
# PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
1 pts/3 S+ 0:00 sleep 999
3 pts/3 S+ 0:00 sleep 555
5 pts/3 R+ 0:00 ps a
# ps h -o 'comm' $! # Show that background job is unshare(1)
unshare
# kill $! # Kill unshare(1)
# pidof sleep
The pidof(1) command prints no output, because the sleep processes have been killed. More
precisely, when the sleep process that has PID 1 in the namespace (i.e., the namespace’s
init process) was killed, this caused all other processes in the namespace to be killed.
By contrast, a similar series of commands where the --kill-child option is not used shows
that when unshare terminates, the processes in the PID namespace are not killed:
# unshare --pid --fork --mount-proc -- \
bash --norc -c ''(sleep 555 &) && (ps a &) && sleep 999'' &
[1] 53479
# PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
1 pts/3 S+ 0:00 sleep 999
3 pts/3 S+ 0:00 sleep 555
5 pts/3 R+ 0:00 ps a
# kill $!
# pidof sleep
53482 53480
The following example demonstrates the creation of a time namespace where the boottime
clock is set to a point several years in the past:
# uptime -p # Show uptime in initial time namespace
up 21 hours, 30 minutes
# unshare --time --fork --boottime 300000000 uptime -p
up 9 years, 28 weeks, 1 day, 2 hours, 50 minutes
AUTHORS
Mikhail Gusarov <dottedmag@dottedmag.net>, Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>
SEE ALSO
newuidmap(1) newgidmap(1) clone(2), unshare(2), namespaces(7), mount(8)
REPORTING BUGS
For bug reports, use the issue tracker at https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues.
AVAILABILITY
The unshare command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux
Kernel Archive <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.