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lxc-usernsexec(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON 

lxc-usernsexec(1)                                       lxc-usernsexec(1)

NAME         top

       lxc-usernsexec - Run a task as root in a new user namespace.

SYNOPSIS         top

       lxc-usernsexec [-m uid-map] {-- command}

DESCRIPTION         top

       lxc-usernsexec  can  be  used  to run a task as root in a new user
       namespace.

OPTIONS         top

       -m uid-map
              The uid map to use in the user namespace. Each map consists
              of four colon-separate values. First a character 'u', 'g'
              or 'b' to specify whether this map pertains to user ids,
              group ids, or both; next the first userid in the user name‐
              space; next the first userid as seen on the host; and fi‐
              nally the number of ids to be mapped.

              More than one map can be specified. If no map is specified,
              then by default the full uid and gid ranges granted by
              /etc/subuid and /etc/subgid will be mapped to the uids and
              gids starting at 0 in the container.

              Note that lxc-usernsexec always tries to setuid and setgid
              to 0 in the namespace. Therefore uid 0 in the namespace
              must be mapped.

EXAMPLES         top

       To spawn a shell with the full allotted subuids mapped into the
       container, use

              lxc-usernsexec

       To run a different shell than /bin/sh, use

              lxc-usernsexec -- /bin/bash

       If your user id is 1000, root in a container is mapped to 190000,
       and you wish to chown a file you own to root in the container, you
       can use:

              lxc-usernsexec -m b:0:1000:1 -m b:1:190000:1 -- /bin/chown 1:1 $file

       This maps your userid to root in the user namespace, and 190000 to
       uid 1.  Since root in the user namespace is privileged over all
       userids mapped into the namespace, you are allowed to change the
       file ownership, which you could not do on the host using a simple
       chown.

SEE ALSO         top

       lxc(7), lxc-create(1), lxc-copy(1), lxc-destroy(1), lxc-start(1),
       lxc-stop(1), lxc-execute(1), lxc-console(1), lxc-monitor(1),
       lxc-wait(1), lxc-cgroup(1), lxc-ls(1), lxc-info(1), lxc-freeze(1),
       lxc-unfreeze(1), lxc-attach(1), lxc.conf(5)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the lxc (Linux containers) project.  Informa‐
       tion about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://linuxcontainers.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this
       manual page, send it to lxc-devel@lists.linuxcontainers.org.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/lxc/lxc.git⟩ on 2025-08-11.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2025-07-29.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

                                2024-04-03              lxc-usernsexec(1)

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