Rocky Linux Jail

Introduction

In this guide, we will walk you through the process of setting up a Rocky Linux jail. This uses the Linux binary compatibility layer in FreeBSD, which allows you to run Linux applications in a FreeBSD environment!

Downloading a Rocky Linux Base

You can pick the latest one from https://images.linuxcontainers.org/images/rockylinux/10/amd64/default/. In our case, we will go with https://images.linuxcontainers.org/images/rockylinux/10/amd64/default/20260326_02%3A06/rootfs.tar.xz.

Navigate to the downloader and paste the URL. Make sure Automatic Extraction is enabled and a meaningful name is set in the optional filename field. Once the download is complete, you should have a file named rockylinux-10-amd64-default-XXX.rootfs.tar.xz in your downloads list.

Creating the Jail

Now creating a Linux jail is pretty similar to a regular one apart from a few small but very important differences. Starting with the Storage section:

Create - Storage

You can see that we are using the jail base that we downloaded in the Base select box. For linux jails we also need some FSTab additions, which we can toggle using the checkbox. Once the checkbox is toggled a text area field shows up, right below it you can just pick Simple Linux and the necessary FSTab entries will be generated for you.

Now moving on to the Networking section, we’re going to be using our LAN switch for this jail. Once the switch is selected you have to pick and IPv4/IPv6 network address and gateway host. You can click the top right button on each of the select boxes to create network objects on the fly. After creation/selection they should look something like this:

Create - Network

Now in the last section, Advanced, you need to pick Jail type as Linux. This will set the necessary parameters for the jail to be able to run Linux binaries.

Create - Advanced

Using the Jail

Once those are done, you can click on the create button and you should be good to go! You can start the jail and open the console to see it flying!

Console