Run an untrusted command with systemd's per-call sandbox (systemd-run --scope) with no persistence and immediate teardown

domain: systemd · 7 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗

Documented steps

  1. Run a transient sandbox in the current cgroup: systemd-run --scope --user=false -p ProtectSystem=strict -p ProtectHome=yes -p PrivateTmp=yes -p PrivateDevices=yes -p NoNewPrivileges=yes -p RestrictAddressFamilies=AF_UNIX -- /path/to/script
  2. Clear capabilities and seccomp for the call: add -p CapabilityBoundingSet= -p SystemCallFilter='@system-service' -p MemoryDenyWriteExecute=yes
  3. Use --description / --unit to tag the transient scope for observability (systemd-run -p ... --unit=tmp-test ...)
  4. For a one-shot that must exit (journaling the result), add --wait so systemd-run blocks and returns the spawned command's exit status
  5. Watch the live result: systemctl status run-u<id>.scope or journalctl -u run-u<id>.scope
  6. Because no unit file is written, there is nothing to clean up after the process exits - the transient scope disappears automatically
  7. Confirm the sandbox held, e.g. the process's /proc/<pid>/status shows NoNewPrivs=1 and Seccomp=2

Known gotchas

Related routes

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Run a sandboxed command without writing a unit file using systemd-run transient scope/service with sandbox flags
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Run untrusted code in an isolated transient systemd unit with systemd-run
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