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Changes To Container Limitations
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Changes To Container Limitations

Changes to "Container Limitations" between 2025-05-28 17:58:41 and 2025-05-28 18:02:12

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*   **`--label`**: The closest equivalent is RouterOS’s `comment` facility, which you can apply to a running container with “`/container/set 0 comment=MYLABEL`”.

*   **`--mac-address`**: If RouterOS had this, I would expect it to be offered as “`/interface/veth/set mac-address=…`”, but that does not currently exist. As it stands, a VETH interface’s MAC address is random, same as the default behavior of Docker.

*   **`--mount`**: The closest equivalent to this in RouterOS is quite different, being the `/container/mounts/add` mechanism. The fact that you create this ahead of instantiating the container might make you guess this to be a nearer match to a “`docker volume create …`” command, but alas, there is no container volume storage manager. In Docker-speak, RouterOS offers bind-mounts only, not separately-managed named volumes that only containers can see.

    Atop this, `container.npk` can bind-mount whole directories only, not single files as Docker and Podman allow. This can be a particular problem when trying to inject a single file under `/etc` since it tends to require that you copy in all of the “peer” files in that same subdirectory hierarchy merely to override one of them.
    Prior to RouterOS 7.20, there was an additional limitation here: `container.npk` could bind-mount whole directories only, not single files as Docker and Podman allow. This was a particular problem when trying to inject a single file under `/etc` since the workaround was to copy the entire subdirectory out of the container, modify the one file you needed changed, and then map the whole mess back in over the top.

*   **`--network`**: This one is tricky. While there is certainly nothing like “`/container/add network=…`”, it’s fair to say the equivalent is, “RouterOS.” You are, after all, running this container atop a highly featureful network operating system. Bare-bones the `container.npk` runtime may be, but any limitations you run into with the network it attaches to are more a reflection of your imagination and skill than to lack of command options under `/container`.

*   **`--pid/uts`**: The RouterOS container runner must use Linux namespaces under the hood, but it does not offer you control over which PID, file, network, user, etc. namespaces each container uses. See also [this](#root).

*   **`--read-only`**: RouterOS offers precious little in terms of file system permission adjustment. As a rule, it is best to either shell into the container and adjust permissions there or rebuild the container with the permissions you want from go. Any expectations based on being able to adjust any of this between image download time and container creation time are likely to founder.