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nestybox
sysbox
Shell2020–2026
nestybox / sysbox

sysbox

An open-source, next-generation "runc" that empowers rootless containers to run workloads such as Systemd, Docker, Kubernetes, just like VMs.

10Distinct people
19Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
4KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

An open-source, next-generation "runc" that empowers rootless containers to run workloads such as Systemd, Docker, Kubernetes, just like VMs.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 10:56:20 AM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year19 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2020-08-07 18:00:52 UTC to 2026-04-06 17:38:28 UTC.

02462020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 2 submissions, 5 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 3 submissions, 0 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 1 submissions, 4 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20232024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC725
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC330
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC514
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202

What Hacker News says

3 sources
ctalledo·Jul 27, 2021Submission

Show HN: Rootless Containers/Pods that run systemd, Docker, and even Kubernetes

Hi HN, this is Cesar and Rodny, developers of an open-source container runtime called Sysbox, and co-founders of a startup called Nestybox (YC S20). We launched on HN almost a year ago and got excellent feedback then (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24084758). Happy to say that over the past year, Sysbox has continued to gain traction, particularly for securing containers in production, CI/CD, and containerized dev environments. We wanted to announce an important new feature: integration between Sysbox and Kubernetes. As a quick refresher, Sysbox is a "runc" that enhances containers in two key ways: 1) Hardens container isolation (Linux user-namespace on all containers, partial procfs & sysfs virtualization, initial mount locking, and more). 2) Enables containers to run not just microservices, but also system software such as systemd
Read the rest
, Docker, K8s, K3s, and more. This enables containers to replace slower/less-efficient VMs in many scenarios. Prior to Sysbox this required insecure privileged containers, custom images, and special host mounts, or specialized tools like LXD, KinD and Minikube. With Sysbox, the container runtime sets up the container such that it can run the software securely and seamlessly, increasing security and reducing complexity. Up to recently Sysbox only worked under Docker, but the latest release (v0.4.0) now works under Kubernetes too. This means you can use Kubernetes to orchestrate pods that are rootless (i.e., root in the container maps to an unprivileged user on the host) and can run not just microservices, but full "VM-like" environments. For example, you can create a pod that acts as a well isolated dev environment and inside of it run systemd, your favorite editor, plus Docker. Or create several pods that together form another K8s cluster for testing. Or run the K8s.io KinD inside a pod to create an entire K8s cluster inside one pod. Many interesting and powerful combinations are possible. Sysbox has taken 2-years of very hard work, as it pushes the limits of OS virtualization (uid-shifting, syscall trapping, procfs virtualization, etc.) It was forked from the OCI runc in 2019, so we stand on the shoulders of the developers of that excellent project. Would love to hear your feedback, if you think this new feature is useful, and for which use-cases. Would also encourage you to try it, we think you'll find it useful. Thanks! - Cesar & Rodny Sysbox: https://github.com/nestybox/sysbox Nestybox: https://www.nestybox.com/
10 points · Open discussion
ctalledo·Mar 29, 2021Submission

Sysbox v0.3 Released

Hi HN, my name is Cesar, I am one of the lead developers of Sysbox (https://github.com/nestybox/sysbox), an enhanced "runc" that enables rootless containers to act as "VM-like" environments, capable of running systemd, Docker, and even K8s inside the rootless container. See this launch HN post for details on Sysbox and use-cases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24084758 Just wanted to let you know that we just released a new version of Sysbox (v0.3), which further hardens container security and brings in several other improvements and bug fixes. Development of Sysbox has been very challenging, as it's pushing the limits of rootless containers (by enabling them to seamlessly run most workloads that run in VMs). We hope you find it useful and we love to hear feedback!
14 points · Open discussion

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