How to install / run service or command on host machine from a docker container

Question

I'm trying to find a good way to run a command on a linux host machine from within a privileged docker container and I want the command to execute within the context of the host.

For example I want the ability to execute some auditing tool that scans the host. The tool is available inside the container and I want it to execute on the host.

Also, I'd like the ability to install a package on the host (specifically Auditd) from the container.

The container can be run with any privileges required for this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Installation:

• mount host FS into container ( -v /:/rootfs/ ) and then run cp in the container, which will copy all required files to that mount /rootfs. Be carefull with dynamic linked binaries - they must be prepared for the host OS, not for container env (they may have different lib, glibc versions).

Management of host services:

• majority of Linuxes use systemd, so just mount required sockets into container ( -v /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus -v /run/systemd:/run/systemd ) and then systemd utilities ( systemctl ) from the container will be able to manage host systemd services