Reduced Isolation Container: Connect to Console

Introduction

A container running in Reduced Isolation mode does not have an associated shim-vm to facilitate console or shell access. EVE-OS uses containerd for Reduced Isolation container management. The containerd ctl CLI must be utilized for container access.

This article walks you through the steps to connect to a container if it does not have UI or SSH access by design. In such cases, accessing via EVE-OS could potentially be an option if you need to test configuration changes (for example) before updating the final public container image. 

Prerequisites:

• You have configured a Container in Reduced Isolation mode.
• The container must have prior support for console or shell (for example, configured in the Dockerfile).
• The Reduced Isolation container is running and online.
• You have enabled SSH access to EVE-OS.

Steps

1. Open a terminal session and SSH to the EVE-OS management IP.

   ssh -i <YOUR_PRIVATE_KEY_PATH> root@<DEVICE_IP>

   Example:

   ssh -i ztest-key root@172.16.8.205

2. Use the ctr task ls command to identify the respective TASK ID.

   fb4b67b7-9dd2:~# ctr task ls

   Response:

   TASK                                        PID     STATUS    
   1105d965-f16d-4e88-8420-2f1e8180fc57.4.4    5333    RUNNING

3. Match the TASK ID to the reported Edge App Instance ID reported in the ZEDEDA GUI.

   

4. Connect to the app-console by referencing the reported TASK ID from the ctr command output.
   

   #ctr task exec -t --exec-id app-console <TASK_ID> /bin/sh

   Example:
   

   fb4b67b7-9dd2:~# ctr task exec -t --exec-id app-console 1105d965-f16d-4e88-8420-2f1e8180fc57.4.4 /bin/sh

5. Type the ls command to verify that you're in the container.
   Example:

   # ls
   CITATION.cff 	LICENSE	README.zh-CN.md  docs  	mkdocs.yml  	tests    	ultralytics.egg-info
   CONTRIBUTING.md  README.md  docker     	examples  pyproject.toml  ultralytics  yolo11n.pt
   #
   

6. Type exit to return to EVE-OS CLI when you're done.
   

   #exit