Reminded me of Docker in Bash: https://github.com/p8952/bocker
In Show HN: Vas-quod – A minimal Linux container runtime written in Rustp8952
bocker
Shell2015–2026
p8952 / bocker
bocker
Docker implemented in around 100 lines of bash
48Distinct people
68Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
12.7KGitHub stars
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What it is
Docker implemented in around 100 lines of bash
GitHub
Where it is used
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 7:24:48 PM 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 year68 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2015-07-21 21:20:07 UTC to 2026-10-23 00:33:39 UTC.
* 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
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 15 | 3 | 12 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 1 | 8 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 2 | 3 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Bocker
Docker implemented in around 100 lines of bash.
Prerequisites
Example Usage
Functionality: Currently Implemented
Functionality: Not Yet Implemented
License
Prerequisites
The following packages are needed to run bocker.
btrfs-progs
curl
iproute2
iptables
libcgroup-tools
util-linux >= 2.25.2
coreutils >= 7.5
Because most distributions do not ship a new enough version of util-linux you will probably need to grab the sources from here and compile it yourself.
Additionally your system will need to be configured with the following:
A btrfs filesystem mounted under /var/bocker
A network bridge called bridge0 and an IP of 10.0.0.1/24
IP forwarding enabled in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
A firewall routing traffic from bridge0 to a physical interface.
For ease of use a Vagrantfile is included which will build the needed environment.
Even if you meet the above prerequisites you probably still want to run bocker in a virtual machine. Bocker runs as root and among other things needs to make changes to your network interfaces, routing table, and firewall rules. I can make no guarantees that it won't trash your system.
Example Usage
$ bocker pull centos 7
######################################################################## 100.0%
######################################################################## 100.0%
######################################################################## 100.0%
Created: img_42150
$ bocker images
IMAGE_ID SOURCE
img_42150 centos:7
$ bocker run img_42150 cat /etc/centos-release
CentOS Linux release 7.1.1503 (Core)
$ bocker ps
CONTAINER_ID COMMAND
ps_42045 cat /etc/centos-release
$ bocker logs ps_42045
CentOS Linux release 7.1.1503 (Core)
$ bocker rm ps_42045
Removed: ps_42045
$ bocker run img_42150 which wget
which: no wget in (/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/root/bin)
$ bocker run img_42150 yum install -y wget
Installing : wget-1.14-10.el7_0.1.x86_64 1/1
Verifying : wget-1.14-10.el7_0.1.x86_64 1/1
Installed : wget.x86_64 0:1.14-10.el7_0.1
Complete!
$ bocker ps
CONTAINER_ID COMMAND
ps_42018 yum install -y wget
ps_42182 which wget
$ bocker commit ps_42018 img_42150
Removed: img_42150
Created: img_42150
$ bocker run img_42150 which wget
/usr/bin/wget
$ bocker run img_42150 cat /proc/1/cgroup
...
4:memory:/ps_42152
3:cpuacct,cpu:/ps_42152
$ cat /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/ps_42152/cpu.shares
512
$ cat /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/ps_42152/memory.limit_in_bytes
512000000
$ BOCKER_CPU_SHARE=1024 \
BOCKER_MEM_LIMIT=1024 \
bocker run img_42150 cat /proc/1/cgroup
...
4:memory:/ps_42188
3:cpuacct,cpu:/ps_42188
$ cat /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/ps_42188/cpu.shares
1024
$ cat /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/ps_42188/memory.limit_in_bytes
1024000000
Functionality: Currently Implemented
docker build †
docker pull
docker images
docker ps
docker run
docker exec
docker logs
docker commit
docker rm / docker rmi
Networking
Quota Support / CGroups
† bocker init provides a very limited implementation of docker build
Functionality: Not Yet Implemented
Data Volume Containers
Data Volumes
Port Forwarding
License
Copyright (C) 2015 Peter Wilmott
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
15 sourcestrue there is https://github.com/p8952/bocker.
In Show HN: Vas-quod – A minimal Linux container runtime written in RustI appreciate the sentiment, but I wouldn't be able to put up with the slow container boot time for regular use. The author mentions this at the bottom. He claims 1sec delay. Last month I benchmarked it on new-ish hardware at 560ms, or 290ms if you disable namespaces (and so disable isolation).
I wanted to also benchmark bocker[1] (docker written in bash) for a baseline comparison, but it no longer runs and I threw in the towel after ~30 mins of tinkering.
Anyways, if you run something like `curl | jq | grep | less` you could be waiting a fair bit for all those containers to start. Package managers are pretty good these days. I think I can trust it to install `jq` properly.
[1]: https://github.com/p8952/bocker
In Run More Stuff in DockerI agree with the assertion that the core "hard tech" in K8S, docker, Ansible, etc has been with us a long time, and some of us did indeed use it.
That said, knowing what to mix and match to create a "pattern that you can learn and everyone uses and learns too" does contribute value, its essentially parallel to the value provided by linux distros.
I can "docker pull" from many different distros, with lots of premade apps.
I think the lesson for the "hard technology" folks is when you solve a hard technical problem DO think about setting up and promoting high-level standards with sane defaults. You are the most knowledgable person(s) for your "hard tech problem", and thereby often in the best position to standardize the default pattern by which it can be used.
That can contribute as much or more value than the hard technical work itself.
ED
Read the rest
IT: also, don't forget to publish and promote STANDARDS giving a well documented "if you don't have a reason not to, do it this way" path for integrating useful tools together. That's essentially what docker is/did, and even though it can be recreated in a 100 lines of bash (https://github.com/p8952/bocker) the branding led to ~100,000 developers publishing containers that are fairly easy for anyone else to understand and build from.
Here's one in 100 lines of bash called, what else, "bocker": https://github.com/p8952/bocker
In Gocker: Docker implemented in 1.3k lines of Go> Docker solved a real problem
> everybody thinks they need k8s and simply cargo cult it for a simple Wordpress blog
docker _also_ has this problem though. there are probably 6 people in the world that need to run one program built with gcc 4.7.1 linked against libc 2.18 and another built with clang 7 and libstdc++ at the same time on the same machine.
and yes, docker "provides benefits" other than package/binary/library isolation, but it's _really_ not doing anything other than wrapping cgroups and namespacing from the kernel - something for which you don't need docker to do (see https://github.com/p8952/bocker).
docker solved the wrong problem, and poorly, imo: the packaging of dependencies required to run an app.
and now we live in a world where there are a trillion instances of musl libc (of varying versions) deployed :)
sorry, this d
Read the rest
oesn't have much to do with k8s, i just really dislike docker, it seems.
Nice work. I'm reminded of bocker [0], which also implements this sort of functionality in only a few dozen lines of code. The function which corresponds to this post [1] is relatively short and readable.
[0] https://github.com/p8952/bocker
[1] https://github.com/p8952/bocker/blob/master/bocker#L61-L90
In Linux containers in a few lines of codeGood read, but "The tool that really runs your containers" isn't quite right either.
Bocker (docker runtime in ~100 lines of bash) does a good job showing what's really happening. Basically namespaces and cgroups, both of which come with Linux. The source is probably the best "deep dive" on containers I've found.
https://github.com/p8952/bocker
Docker thrives because of the repository of images, a great name, and some marketing. Runc thrives because it provides a nice wrapper around namespaces, mounts, cgroups, virtual network interfaces, etc. Neither really provides the magic, though...it's already there.
In Deep dive into runc and OCI specificationsThe gap is that it's skipping half of what makes Docker powerful, and what isn't really discussed in this conversation at all either. Distribution.
E.g. see this line of code: https://github.com/p8952/bocker/blob/master/bocker#L25
"But I thought bocker implements Docker?" It doesn't, it only attempts to implement the "Docker daemon" part, and piggy-backs on Docker registries for image distribution. This is a huge part of the power of Docker, and why Docker isn't "just cgroups and namespaces". Cgroups and namespaces are a critical element, but Docker is much more than that too--it's also a set of standards for distributing and administering configuration+data for cgroups and namespaces.
In Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017)Have them look at bocker (docker-like in ~100 lines of bash).
It makes it very clear what docker is, and isn't.
https://github.com/p8952/bocker
Specifically, the bocker_run function: https://github.com/p8952/bocker/blob/master/bocker#L61
In Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017)Bocker – Docker implemented in around 100 lines of Bash (2015)
543 points · Open discussionStuff like https://github.com/p8952/bocker/blob/master/bocker#L94 is super dense.
I might write that something like:
cid="$(
ps o ppid,pid |
grep "^$(
ps o pid,cmd |
grep -E "^\ *[0-9]+ unshare.*$1" |
awk '{print $1}'
)" |
awk '{print $2}'
)"
In Linux containers in 500 lines of code (2016)Docker in ~100 lines of bash: https://github.com/p8952/bocker
In Linux containers in 500 lines of code (2016)