Using toolbox for SUSE Linux Micro debugging

SUSE Linux Micro uses the transactional-update command to apply changes to the system, but the changes are applied only after reboot. That solution has several benefits, but it also has some disadvantages. If you need to debug your system and install a new tool, the tool will be available only after reboot. Therefore, you cannot debug the currently running system. For this reason, a utility called toolbox has been developed.

toolbox is a small script that pulls a container image and runs a privileged container based on that image. toolbox is stateful so if you exit the container and start it later, the environment is exactly the same.

The root file system of the container is mounted on /media/root.

To start the toolbox container as a regular user with root rights, run the following command:

> toolbox --root

As root, you can omit the --root option:

# toolbox

If the script completes successfully, you can see the toolbox container prompt.

To remove the container, run the following command:

> sudo podman rm toolbox-USER

For example, for the root user:

# podman rm toolbox-root

Note: Obtaining the toolbox image

You can also use Podman or Cockpit to pull the toolbox image and start a container based on that image.

In the toolbox container, you can install any tool you want with zypper and then use the tool without rebooting your system.

To leave the container, just type exit. Remember that the container stays in the same state as you exit it. If you want a clean environment, you need to remove the toolbox container first. For the removal procedure, see Section 2, “Starting and removing toolbox”.

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