NSENTER(1)                                User Commands                                NSENTER(1)



NAME
       nsenter - run program with namespaces of other processes

SYNOPSIS
       nsenter [options] [program [arguments]]

DESCRIPTION
       Enters  the namespaces of one or more other processes and then executes the specified pro‐
       gram.  Enterable namespaces are:

       mount namespace
              Mounting and unmounting filesystems will not affect the rest of the system  (CLONE_
              NEWNS  flag),  except  for  filesystems which are explicitly marked as shared (with
              mount --make-shared; see /proc/self/mountinfo for the shared flag).

       UTS namespace
              Setting hostname or domainname will not affect the rest  of  the  system.   (CLONE_
              NEWUTS flag)

       IPC namespace
              The  process  will have an independent namespace for System V message queues, sema‐
              phore sets and shared memory segments.  (CLONE_NEWIPC flag)

       network namespace
              The process will have independent IPv4 and IPv6 stacks, IP routing tables, firewall
              rules,  the  /proc/net  and  /sys/class/net directory trees, sockets, etc.  (CLONE_
              NEWNET flag)

       PID namespace
              Children will have a set of PID to  process  mappings  separate  from  the  nsenter
              process  (CLONE_NEWPID  flag).   nsenter  will  fork by default if changing the PID
              namespace, so that the new program and its children share the  same  PID  namespace
              and  are  visible  to  each  other.   If --no-fork is used, the new program will be
              exec'ed without forking.

       user namespace
              The process will have a distinct set  of  UIDs,  GIDs  and  capabilities.   (CLONE_
              NEWUSER flag)

       See clone(2) for the exact semantics of the flags.

       If program is not given, then ``${SHELL}'' is run (default: /bin/sh).


OPTIONS
       -t, --target pid
              Specify a target process to get contexts from.  The paths to the contexts specified
              by pid are:

              /proc/pid/ns/mnt    the mount namespace
              /proc/pid/ns/uts    the UTS namespace
              /proc/pid/ns/ipc    the IPC namespace
              /proc/pid/ns/net    the network namespace
              /proc/pid/ns/pid    the PID namespace
              /proc/pid/ns/user   the user namespace
              /proc/pid/root      the root directory
              /proc/pid/cwd       the working directory respectively

       -m, --mount[=file]
              Enter the mount namespace.  If no file is specified, enter the mount  namespace  of
              the  target  process.  If file is specified, enter the mount namespace specified by
              file.

       -u, --uts[=file]
              Enter the UTS namespace.  If no file is specified, enter the UTS namespace  of  the
              target process.  If file is specified, enter the UTS namespace specified by file.

       -i, --ipc[=file]
              Enter  the  IPC namespace.  If no file is specified, enter the IPC namespace of the
              target process.  If file is specified, enter the IPC namespace specified by file.

       -n, --net[=file]
              Enter the network namespace.  If no file is specified, enter the network  namespace
              of the target process.  If file is specified, enter the network namespace specified
              by file.

       -p, --pid[=file]
              Enter the PID namespace.  If no file is specified, enter the PID namespace  of  the
              target process.  If file is specified, enter the PID namespace specified by file.

       -U, --user[=file]
              Enter the user namespace.  If no file is specified, enter the user namespace of the
              target process.  If file is specified, enter the user namespace specified by  file.
              See also the --setuid and --setgid options.

       -G, --setgid gid
              Set the group ID which will be used in the entered user namespace.

       -S, --setuid uid
              Set the user ID which will be used in the entered user namespace.

       -r, --root[=directory]
              Set  the  root  directory.  If no directory is specified, set the root directory to
              the root directory of the target process.  If directory is specified, set the  root
              directory to the specified directory.

       -w, --wd[=directory]
              Set the working directory.  If no directory is specified, set the working directory
              to the working directory of the target process.  If directory is specified, set the
              working directory to the specified directory.

       -F, --no-fork
              Do not fork before exec'ing the specified program.  By default, when entering a PID
              namespace, nsenter calls fork before calling exec so that any children will also be
              in the newly entered PID namespace.

       -V, --version
              Display version information and exit.

       -h, --help
              Display help text and exit.

SEE ALSO
       setns(2), clone(2)

AUTHOR
       Eric Biederman ⟨ebiederm AT xmission.com⟩

AVAILABILITY
       The  nsenter  command is part of the util-linux package and is available from Linux Kernel
       Archive ⟨ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩.



util-linux                                  June 2013                                  NSENTER(1)