phocker

An exercise in self-isolation using PHP

Requirements

• linux 3.8+
• util-linux package
• PHP 7.0+
• ext-posix

Installation

• Clone this repository
• Pick a minimal rootfs of your choice and copy its contents to the images/[name of the image] folder. Some root filesystems you may try:
  • Ubuntu
  • CentOS
  • Alpine
  • Most images on LXC's Jenkins should work fine.

Usage

• ./phocker run [image] [command] to launch a container and execute the command in it.
• ./phocker exec [container] [command] to execute a command on a running container.

Examples

pedro@host ~/dev/pmmaga/phocker $ ./phocker run alpine ls
bin  boot  dev	etc  home  lib	lib64  media  mnt  opt	proc  root  run  sbin  srv  sys  tmp  usr  var

pedro@host ~/dev/pmmaga/phocker $ ./phocker run alpine ps
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
    1 ?        00:00:00 php
    6 ?        00:00:00 sh
    7 ?        00:00:00 ps

pedro@host ~/dev/pmmaga/phocker $ echo "Hello phocker!" | ./phocker run alpine cat --
Hello phocker!

pedro@host ~/dev/pmmaga/phocker $ ./phocker run ubuntu /bin/bash
root@phocker:/# whoami
root
root@phocker:/# hostname
phocker
root@phocker:/# exit
exit

Tips

The containers are not removed after exiting. Periodical cleanup of the containers/ folder may be advisable.

Motivation

Heavily inspired by Liz Rice's talk Containers from scratch and the corresponding repository I set out to try to accomplish the same using PHP.

It also helped me better understand the process behind the isolation achieved by container runtime engines.