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RustLinuxContainers
September 5, 2024

Mini Container Runtime

A minimal Linux container runtime built in Rust using namespaces, cgroups, and chroot to understand containerization from first principles.

Overview

A minimal Linux container runtime that creates isolated process environments using Linux namespaces, cgroups v2, and chroot. Built to understand how Docker actually works under the hood.

What It Does

  • Creates PID, network, mount, and UTS namespaces
  • Applies cgroup v2 resource limits (CPU, memory)
  • Sets up a minimal root filesystem via chroot
  • Implements basic container lifecycle (create, start, stop, delete)

Lessons Learned

Containers are not virtual machines. They are just processes with some kernel-level isolation. Understanding this distinction at the implementation level has made me a far better DevOps engineer.

Developed by

Shyam