Docker-boot – Run a system from RAM without LiveCD
How often do you screw up the system so much you have to reformat the disk (without losing data) to fix it? Well, sometimes I do, and sometimes I can't be bothered to burn a live ISO onto a USB stick. There's initramfs, but it's hardly a pleasant environment, with network configuration and all. My go-to solution has typically been to create a chroot with busybox and a few utilities in /tmp, chroot into it, and then kill services that use the solid drive so that I can unmount it. That's an error-prone process, and sometimes systemd itself uses disk, so you can't unmount the drive despite…
Docker-boot – Run a system from RAM without LiveCD launched on April 14, 2024 with 27 votes, #775 of 4,347 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 2 years on.
In plain words
Docker-boot enables users to run a complete system environment from RAM without needing to create a LiveCD or USB stick. It uses Docker images as a base to create a customizable chroot environment, automatically handling the complex process of shutting down all userland processes to safely unmount the disk. This tool is designed for system administrators and developers who need to perform disk repairs or reformatting while preserving data, offering a simpler alternative to manual initramfs setup.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
Like `execve`, but for userspace. Contribute to purplesyringa/docker-boot development by creating an account on GitHub.
In the maker’s words, at launch
How often do you screw up the system so much you have to reformat the disk (without losing data) to fix it? Well, sometimes I do, and sometimes I can't be bothered to burn a live ISO onto a USB stick. There's initramfs, but it's hardly a pleasant environment, with network configuration and all. My go-to solution has…
Does a similar job
all alternatives →
Unregistry – “docker push” directly to servers without a registry2025 · github.com · ▲726I got tired of the push-to-registry/pull-from-registry dance every time I needed to deploy a Docker image. In certain cases, using a full-fledged external (or even local) registry is annoying overhead. And if you think about it, there's already a form of registry present on any of your Docker-enabled hosts — the Docker's own image storage. So I built Unregistry [1] that exposes Docker's (containerd) image storage through a standard registry API. It adds a `docker pussh` command that pushes images directly to remote Docker daemons over SSH. It transfers only the missing layers, making it…
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It is fairly simple, but useful for non-power users: a statically-linked Qt app that gracefully edits Windows Boot Manager to do a reboot-once into GRUB, which in turn launches ZorinOS live/installer from disk loopback. I needed to make a custom initramfs with dislocker in it, and to squeeze it a little (default Windows EFI partition is not so big). Currently my biggest issue is that systemd is unable to shut down gracefully when rootfs is mounted from such a deep loop stack. The other is that installing to full disk crashes right after it successfully damages the partition table. I…
I've built a nice home server OSApr 2026 · lightwhale.asklandd.dk · ▲194ohai! I've released Lightwhale 3, which is possibly the easiest way to self-host Docker containers. It's a free, immutable Linux system purpose-built to live-boot straight into a working Docker Engine, thereby shortcutting the need for installation, configuration, and maintenance. Its simple design makes it easy to learn, and its low memory footprint should make it especially attractive during these times of RAMageddon. If this has piqued your interest, do check it out, along with its easy-to-follow Getting Started guide. In any event, have a nice day! =)
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