Containers Internals

Containers Internals

Purpose

Guide agents through Linux container internals: namespaces (clone, unshare, nsenter), cgroups v2 resource limits, overlayfs storage, runc and the OCI runtime spec, seccomp-bpf filtering, Linux capabilities for privilege dropping, and container escape mitigations.

When to Use

• Understanding how Docker/Podman isolate processes under the hood
• Debugging container resource limits (OOM, CPU throttling)
• Writing custom seccomp profiles for sandboxed workloads
• Building minimal containers without Docker
• Investigating container escape vulnerabilities
• Tuning cgroups v2 for Kubernetes pods

Workflow

1. Namespaces

# List namespaces for a process
ls -la /proc/self/ns/
readlink /proc/self/ns/pid
readlink /proc/1234/ns/net

# Enter container namespaces
nsenter -t <pid> -m -u -i -n -p bash

# Unshare namespaces (manual container)
unshare --fork --mount-proc --pid --net --uts --ipc bash

// clone() with namespaces
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <sched.h>

int container_init(void *arg) {
    sethostname("container", 9);
    mount("proc", "/proc", "proc", 0, NULL);
    execv("/bin/sh", (char *[]){"/bin/sh", NULL});
    return 1;
}

int stack[1024 * 1024];
clone(container_init, stack + sizeof(stack)/sizeof(int),
      CLONE_NEWPID | CLONE_NEWNS | CLONE_NEWNET | SIGCHLD, NULL);

2. cgroups v2

# Unified hierarchy (cgroup v2)
mount -t cgroup2 none /sys/fs/cgroup

# Create cgroup and set limits
mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/mycontainer
echo $$ > /sys/fs/cgroup/mycontainer/cgroup.procs

# Memory limit 256MB
echo 256M > /sys/fs/cgroup/mycontainer/memory.max

# CPU weight (relative to siblings, default 100)
echo 50 > /sys/fs/cgroup/mycontainer/cpu.weight

# IO weight
echo default 100 > /sys/fs/cgroup/mycontainer/io.weight

# Check current cgroup
cat /proc/self/cgroup

# OOM events
cat /sys/fs/cgroup/mycontainer/memory.events

3. overlayfs

overlayfs layers
├── lowerdir (read-only image layers)
├── upperdir (container writes)
├── workdir (internal bookkeeping)
└── merged (mount point seen by container)

mount -t overlay overlay \
  -o lowerdir=lower1:lower2,upperdir=upper,workdir=work \
  merged

# Docker stores layers in /var/lib/docker/overlay2/

Copy-on-write: reads from lower, writes go to upper.

4. runc and OCI spec

# Generate default OCI config
mkdir -p mycontainer/rootfs
runc spec

# Edit config.json — namespaces, mounts, process args
# Run container
sudo runc run mycontainer

# List
runc list

config.json key sections:

{
  "ociVersion": "1.0.2",
  "process": {
    "args": ["/bin/sh"],
    "capabilities": { "bounding": ["CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE"] }
  },
  "linux": {
    "namespaces": [
      {"type": "pid"}, {"type": "network"}, {"type": "mount"}
    ],
    "seccomp": { ... },
    "resources": {
      "memory": { "limit": 268435456 }
    }
  },
  "root": { "path": "rootfs", "readonly": false }
}

5. seccomp-bpf

// libseccomp example — block mount
#include <seccomp.h>

scmp_filter_ctx ctx = seccomp_init(SCMP_ACT_ALLOW);
seccomp_rule_add(ctx, SCMP_ACT_ERRNO(EPERM), SCMP_SYS(mount), 0);
seccomp_rule_add(ctx, SCMP_ACT_ERRNO(EPERM), SCMP_SYS(pivot_root), 0);
seccomp_load(ctx);

# Docker default seccomp profile (JSON)
# https://github.com/moby/moby/blob/master/profiles/seccomp/default.json

# Audit blocked syscalls
# kernel: seccomp log via auditd
ausearch -m SECCOMP

6. Linux capabilities

# Drop all caps except needed
capsh --drop=all --add=net_bind_service -- -c '/app/server'

# File capabilities
setcap cap_net_bind_service+ep /usr/bin/myserver
getcap /usr/bin/myserver

In containers: default Docker drops CAP_SYS_ADMIN, CAP_NET_RAW, etc. Run as non-root with minimal bounding set.

7. User namespace rootless

# Rootless podman/docker maps root in container to unprivileged UID on host
cat /proc/self/uid_map
#          0       1000          1
# container UID 0 → host UID 1000

Rootless limits: cannot mount most filesystems, no CAP_SYS_ADMIN.

8. Escape mitigations

Defense layers
├── User namespace (rootless)
├── seccomp (block dangerous syscalls)
├── AppArmor/SELinux (MAC)
├── Capabilities drop (--cap-drop=ALL)
├── Read-only rootfs
├── no-new-privileges
└── Seccomp + Landlock for filesystem

docker run --read-only --cap-drop=ALL --security-opt=no-new-privileges \
  --security-opt seccomp=default.json myimage

Known escape vectors: mounted docker.sock, privileged mode, kernel CVEs, /proc leaks.

Common Problems

Related Skills

• skills/virtualization/qemu-kvm — VM isolation vs containers
• skills/security/kernel-security — SELinux, AppArmor, seccomp depth
• skills/observability/ebpf — trace container syscalls
• skills/runtimes/binary-hardening — seccomp and capabilities in production
• skills/kernel/kernel-internals — cgroups and namespaces in kernel
• skills/profilers/strace-ltrace — syscall tracing for seccomp tuning