# shuveb/containers-the-hard-way

Learning about containers and how they work by creating them the hard way

Repository: https://github.com/shuveb/containers-the-hard-way
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/containers-the-hard-way
Language: Go
License Family: other
Last push: 2022-01-22T04:25:22+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2292, "days_push": 1684, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1632, forks 192 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:14.119470+00:00)

## What it is
Gocker is a mini Docker implementation written in Go that recreates Docker's core functionality from scratch using Linux system calls like namespaces and cgroups. It is primarily an educational project for understanding how containers work at the Linux system call level.

## Use cases
- learn how containers work under the hood
- understand linux namespaces and cgroups
- see how docker is implemented with system calls
- study container image management and networking
- run a minimal container runtime from source
- teach container internals to others

## When to choose
- you want to deeply understand container internals at the syscall level
- you prefer readable Go source over shell-script alternatives like bocker
- you are teaching or learning operating system virtualization concepts

## When to avoid
- you need a production-ready container runtime
- you need full Docker feature coverage or orchestration
- you are not on Linux, since it relies on Linux-specific primitives
- you need an actively maintained or supported tool

## Facets
- artifact type: learning-resource
- maturity: maintenance
- function: container-runtime, cli, developer-tools
- domain: operating-systems, developer-tools, tutorials
- platform: go, cli
- tags: mini-docker, namespaces, cgroups, educational, containers-internals, containers, linux

## Member repositories
- shuveb/containers-the-hard-way (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:14.119470+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 2026-08-30T03:47:48.161387+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/shuveb/containers-the-hard-way (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:14.119470+00:00, sha e3b813add508)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.