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Container Management

OSAPI can manage containers on target hosts through a pluggable runtime driver architecture. Container operations run through the job system, so the API server never interacts with the container runtime directly -- agents handle all execution.

What It Does​

OperationDescription
CreateCreate a new container from a specified image
ListList containers, optionally filtered by state
InspectGet detailed information about a container
StartStart a stopped container
StopStop a running container
RemoveRemove a container
ExecExecute a command inside a running container
PullPull a container image to the host

Create builds a new container from a specified image with optional name, environment variables, port mappings, and volume mounts. By default, containers are started immediately after creation (auto_start: true).

List returns containers on the target host, filtered by state (running, stopped, or all). Results include container ID, name, image, state, and creation timestamp.

Inspect retrieves detailed information about a specific container, including port mappings, volume mounts, environment variables, network settings, and health check status.

Start and Stop control the lifecycle of existing containers. Stop accepts an optional timeout (default 10 seconds) before forcibly killing the container.

Remove deletes a container from the host. Use --force to remove a running container without stopping it first.

Exec runs a command inside a running container and returns stdout, stderr, and the exit code. Supports optional environment variables and a working directory override.

Pull downloads a container image to the host. Returns the image ID, tag, and size.

How It Works​

Container operations follow the same request flow as all OSAPI operations:

  1. The CLI (or API client) posts a request to the API server.
  2. The API server creates a job and publishes it to NATS.
  3. An agent picks up the job, executes the container operation through the runtime driver, and writes the result back to NATS KV.
  4. The API server collects the result and returns it to the client.

You can target a specific host, broadcast to all hosts with _all, or route by label. See CLI Reference for usage and examples, or the API Reference for the REST endpoints.

Runtime Drivers​

OSAPI uses a pluggable runtime driver interface for container operations. The agent auto-detects which runtime is available on the host and selects the appropriate driver.

DriverDetectionStatus
DockerChecks for Docker socket at /var/run/docker.sockDefault

The Docker driver communicates with the Docker daemon through its Unix socket. No additional configuration is required -- if Docker is installed and the agent has access to the socket, container operations work automatically.

Configuration​

Container management uses the general job infrastructure. No domain-specific configuration sections are required in osapi.yaml.

The Docker runtime driver auto-detects the Docker socket at /var/run/docker.sock. Ensure the agent process has read/write access to the socket (typically by adding the agent user to the docker group).

See Configuration for NATS, agent, and authentication settings.

Permissions​

Container operations require docker:* permissions. The admin role includes docker:read, docker:write, and docker:execute. The write role includes docker:read and docker:write. The read role includes only docker:read. See the API reference for the permission required by each endpoint.

Container exec is a privileged operation similar to command execution. Only the admin role includes docker:execute by default. Grant it to other roles or tokens explicitly when needed:

controller:
  api:
    security:
      roles:
        docker-ops:
          permissions:
            - docker:read
            - docker:write
            - docker:execute
            - health:read

Or grant it directly on a token:

osapi token generate -r write -u user@example.com \
  -p docker:execute

Orchestrator​

Container operations can be composed as a DAG using osapi-orchestrator. See the Docker operations and the docker.go example for a complete container lifecycle workflow (pull, create, start, exec, inspect, stop, remove, image-remove).