Few questions on Toolbox

Ask Fedora
1

Recently I read about a tool called Toolbox which seems to be pretty cool so i gave it a shot just to see how basic setup works…

Default base image f35 had some issue and it was exiting immediately after start so i went ahead and switched f34 image that work completely fine.

I read a blog post on creating managing and running container and images… and it suppose to use and throw solution, so you dont have to have the lib and code on main system but inside an container… so when i entered and created an simple file and logout and deleted the container the file still remains in my system.

So…

  • how you suppose to use it?
  • what are use cases? is it suppose to be used for web dev or not?
  • which files willl be deleted? only those which are installed using package manager?
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2

The command toolbox rmi (rmi = remove image) should delete whole toolbox images (instead of only containers). You can append flags to the command, too: e.g. toolbox rmi --force <IMAGE>.

Anything you have installed in the toolbox will be removed, that’s why you can create several toolbox images: so that you can have an immutable “clean” system.

3

Actually i read about those things …what i did is that i created an file inside container and deleted the container but that didnt removed that file i created inside the container… so what things will be kept and what things will be removed?

toolbox create -c newcontainer  --release f34

toolbox enter newcontainer

nano testfile.txt

exit 

toolbox rm newcontainer
4

Hello @knightcrusty ,
Toolbox is what as known as a “Pet” container as opposed to a “Cow” container. The idea behind the Pet container is to have a custom environment for a specific task or group of tasks. Toolbox takes this a bit further since it maps your home directory into the container as your user GID/UID combo so anything you do in the toolbox to your home directory is persistent to use the correct vernacular. Also toolbox will try to give you the same shell experience as you get in a terminal on the host, for example I use Fish shell and Guake terminal so I installed Fish in my toolbox so I can have my shell setup the same. See attached screenshots for example prompt…

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my standard system prompt
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now in toolbox, not much difference except title
In toolbox, you have a standalone system to test your whatever in without risking damaging your host system setup. If the container gets unusable destroy it and start again.

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