openshell-vm-init

openshell-vm-init prepare-networkopenshell-vm-init --version

openshell-vm-init is a one-shot Linux helper that NVIDIA OpenShell places in each microVM guest. openshell-driver-vm embeds the binary and writes it to /opt/openshell/bin/openshell-vm-init in the bootstrap root and in prepared image roots. Guest init runs as root and calls prepare-network after it reconciles the sandbox account, fixes /sandbox ownership, and sets the hostname and hosts file. It then hands the workload to openshell-sandbox.prepare-network opens an IPv4 datagram socket and sets the up flag on the loopback interface lo. If the interface is already up, that flag stays set. The command reads the flags again and fails when loopback is still down. It does not assign an address. Guest init writes the resolver file and allows unprivileged binds of port 53 only after this command succeeds. A failure aborts the boot.--version prints openshell-vm-init and the crate version. It does not touch the network.The command takes no further arguments. Anything else is an error.

--version

Print the program name and crate version, then exit.

prepare-network

Bring lo up. Linux only. Must run as the guest root user (effective UID 0). No arguments.

This binary is for the guest, not the host operator shell. The usual caller is the guest init script /srv/openshell-vm-sandbox-init.sh. On the host, the bytes live inside openshell-driver-vm until that driver injects them into a root disk.prepare-network is rejected when the effective UID is not 0, and on platforms other than Linux. An unknown command, a missing command, or any extra argument fails. Errors go to stderr as openshell-vm-init: followed by the reason, and the process exits non-zero.The helper only sets the interface up. Address configuration, DNS, and the unprivileged-port sysctl stay in the guest init script.

openshell-vm-init ships in NVIDIA OpenShell (Apache License 2.0), in the openshell-driver-vm crate. OpenShell was first published in March 2026. The 0.1.x line is the stable release cadence. The VM driver is marked experimental in its crate README.

openshell-driver-vm(1), openshell-sandbox(1), openshell(1), openshell-gateway(1), openshell-supervisor(1)

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