distrobox-enter takes care of entering the container with the name specified. Default command executed is your SHELL, but you can specify different shells or entire commands to execute. If using it inside a script, an application, or a service, you can specify the --headless mode to disable tty and interactivity.
Usage:
distrobox-enter --name fedora-toolbox-35 -- bash -l
distrobox-enter my-alpine-container -- sh -l
distrobox-enter --additional-flags "--preserve-fds" --name test -- bash -l
distrobox-enter --additional-flags "--env MY_VAR=value" --name test -- bash -l
MY_VAR=value distrobox-enter --additional-flags "--preserve-fds" --name test -- bash -l
Supported environment variables:
DBX_CONTAINER_NAME
Options:
--name/-n: name for the distrobox default: fedora-toolbox-35
--/-e: end arguments execute the rest as command to execute at login default: bash -l
--no-tty/-T: do not instantiate a tty
--additional-flags/-a: additional flags to pass to the container manager command
--help/-h: show this message
--root/-r: launch podman/docker with root privileges. Note that if you need root this is the preferred
way over "sudo distrobox"
--dry-run/-d: only print the container manager command generated
--verbose/-v: show more verbosity
--version/-V: show version
This is used to enter the distrobox itself. Personally, I just create multiple profiles in
my gnome-terminal to have multiple distros accessible.
The --additional-flags or -a is useful to modify default command when executing in the container.
For example:
distrobox enter -n dev-arch --additional-flags "--env my_var=test" -- printenv &| grep my_var
my_var=test
This is possible also using normal env variables:
my_var=test distrobox enter -n dev-arch --additional-flags -- printenv &| grep my_var
my_var=test