# lucavallin/barco

Linux containers from scratch in C.

Repository: https://github.com/lucavallin/barco
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/barco
Homepage: https://lucavallin.com
Language: C
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: c, containers, linux
Last push: 2025-06-30T10:55:43+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 29, release rhythm 8, longevity 81
- inputs: {"age_days": 1135, "days_push": 429, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1543, forks 93 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:01.191448+00:00)

## What it is
barco is a minimal Linux container runtime written in C, built from scratch using kernel features like namespaces, cgroups, seccomp, and capabilities. It is primarily an educational project for learning how containers work at the kernel level.

## Use cases
- run a process inside an isolated Linux container
- learn how namespaces and cgroups implement containers
- understand seccomp filters and capability dropping in practice
- study container runtime internals in readable C code
- experiment with resource limits like memory and CPU via cgroups v2

## When to choose
- you want to learn how Docker-style containers work under the hood
- you need a tiny, dependency-light container runner for experimentation
- you are teaching or studying Linux kernel isolation primitives

## When to avoid
- you need a production-grade container runtime with image management
- you want OCI compatibility, networking setup, or registry support
- you need to run containers on non-Linux platforms

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: container-runtime, security, developer-tools
- domain: operating-systems, developer-tools
- platform: c, cli
- tags: containers-from-scratch, namespaces, cgroups, seccomp, educational, learning-project, containers, linux

## Member repositories
- lucavallin/barco (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:01.191448+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T04:30:41.788804+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/lucavallin/barco (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:01.191448+00:00, sha f86361877d51)
  - homepage: https://lucavallin.com (fetched 2026-08-29T11:32:02.311014+00:00, sha e0210956425a)
  - site_page: https://www.lucavallin.com/about (fetched 2026-08-29T11:32:02.313899+00:00, sha dbf3c635bce1)
  - site_page: https://www.lucavallin.com/blog/google-cloud-networking-101-the-comprehensive-tldr (fetched 2026-08-29T11:32:02.316058+00:00, sha d1d976759cb8)
  - site_page: https://verto.lucavallin.com (fetched 2026-08-29T11:32:02.319984+00:00, sha f65f466bfe50)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.