toolbox for debuggingOperating Systems deployed by Elemental are image based and immutable during
runtime. That solution has several benefits, but it also has some
disadvantages. If you need to debug your system, you need to be able to get
access to additional tools with minimal changes on the host system. For this
reason, a utility called toolbox has been developed.
toolbox is a small script that pulls a container image and runs a privileged
container based on that image. toolbox is stateful so if you exit the container
and start it later, the environment is exactly the same.
The root file system of the container is mounted on /media/root.
toolboxTo start the toolbox container run the following command as root:
# toolbox
If the script completes successfully, you can see the toolbox container prompt.
To remove the container, run the following command:
# podman rm toolbox-root
toolboxIn the toolbox container, you can install any tool you want with zypper and
then use the tool without rebooting your system. It does not require the system
to be registered, as a subset of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server packages are
available for installation.
To leave the container, just type exit. Remember that the container stays in
the same state as you exit it. If you want a clean environment, you need to
remove the toolbox container first.