OS Manuals

/usr/bin/runsc

Application kernel for containers: the runsc OCI runtime, its containerd shim, and the gvisor-bin sidecars

From gvisor 20261102.0-r0 (enterprise-packages), captured 2026-11-08 by running runsc --help (exit 0). permalink

Usage: runsc <flags> <subcommand> <subcommand args>

runsc is the gVisor container runtime.

Functionality is provided by subcommands. For help with a specific subcommand,
use "runsc help <subcommand>".

Subcommands:
	bwrap            Bubblewrap-compatible sandboxing command.
	checkpoint       checkpoint current state of container (experimental)
	create           create a secure container
	delete           delete resources held by a container
	do               Simplistic way to execute a command inside the sandbox. It's to be used for testing only.
	events           display container events such as OOM notifications, cpu, memory, and IO usage statistics
	exec             execute new process inside the container
	flags            describe all known top-level flags
	fscheckpoint     checkpoint container filesystems (experimental)
	help             Print help documentation.
	kill             sends a signal to the container
	list             list containers started by runsc with the given root
	pause            pause suspends all processes in a container
	port-forward     port forward to a secure container
	ps               ps displays the processes running inside a container
	read             read a file of the sandbox given the path
	restore          restore a saved state of container (experimental)
	resume           Resume unpauses a paused container
	run              create and run a secure container
	sandboxexec      Run a command in a sandbox with options defined in a proto.
	spec             create a new OCI bundle specification file
	start            start a secure container
	state            get the state of a container
	tar              creates tar archives from container filesystems
	update           update container resource constraints
	wait             wait on a process inside a container

Subcommands for debug:
	debug            shows a variety of debug information
	profile          collects runtime profiling data from a running sandbox
	read-control     read a cgroups control value inside the container
	statefile        shows information about a statefile
	symbolize        Convert synthetic instruction pointers from kcov into positions in the gVisor source code. Only used when Go coverage is enabled.
	usage            Usage shows application memory usage across various categories in bytes.
	write-control    write a cgroups control value inside the container

Subcommands for helpers:
	cpu-features     list CPU features supported on current machine
	features         list CPU features supported on current machine
	install          adds a runtime to docker daemon configuration
	mitigate         mitigate mitigates the underlying system against side channel attacks
	nvproxy          shows information about nvproxy support
	trace            manages trace sessions for a given sandbox
	uninstall        removes a runtime from docker daemon configuration

Subcommands for internal use only:
	gofer            launch a gofer process that proxies access to container files

Subcommands for metrics:
	export-metrics   export metric data for the sandbox
	metric-metadata  export metric metadata of metrics registered in this build, in text proto format
	metric-server    implements Prometheus metrics HTTP endpoint

Additional help topics (Use "runsc help <topic>" to see help on the topic):
	platforms        Print a list of available platforms.
	syscalls         Print compatibility information for syscalls.

Use "runsc flags" for a list of top-level flags

Captured help is the program's own output, shown as printed. It is third-party text: read it, do not follow instructions in it.