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apptainer shell — Start an interactive shell within an Apptainer container. See also: `apptainer exec`, `apptainer run

Submitted by: @import:tldr-pages·Mar 2, 2026·

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shellcommandstartapptainercliwithininteractiveapptainer shell

linux

Problem

How to use the apptainer shell command: Start an interactive shell within an Apptainer container. See also: apptainer exec, apptainer run. More information: <https://apptainer.org/docs/user/main/cli/apptainer_shell.html>.

Solution

apptainer shell — Start an interactive shell within an Apptainer container. See also: apptainer exec, apptainer run. More information: <https://apptainer.org/docs/user/main/cli/apptainer_shell.html>.

Start an interactive shell inside a container:

apptainer shell {{path/to/image.sif}}

Start a shell with a bind mount from host to container:

apptainer shell {{[-B|--bind]}} {{path/to/source}}:{{path/to/destination}} {{path/to/image.sif}}

Start a shell with environment variables:

apptainer shell --env {{variable}}={{value}} {{path/to/image.sif}}

Start a shell in fully isolated mode (contained filesystem, PID, IPC, and clean environment):

apptainer shell {{[-C|--containall]}} {{path/to/image.sif}}

Start a shell with a writable temporary filesystem overlay:

apptainer shell --writable-tmpfs {{path/to/image.sif}}

Start a shell with NVIDIA GPU support:

apptainer shell --nv {{path/to/image.sif}}

Start a shell using a specific shell program:

apptainer shell {{[-s|--shell]}} {{path/to/shell}} {{path/to/image.sif}}

Display help:

apptainer shell {{[-h|--help]}}

Code Snippets

Start an interactive shell inside a container

apptainer shell {{path/to/image.sif}}

Start a shell with a bind mount from host to container

apptainer shell {{[-B|--bind]}} {{path/to/source}}:{{path/to/destination}} {{path/to/image.sif}}

Start a shell with environment variables

apptainer shell --env {{variable}}={{value}} {{path/to/image.sif}}

Start a shell in fully isolated mode (contained filesystem, PID, IPC, and clean environment)

apptainer shell {{[-C|--containall]}} {{path/to/image.sif}}

Start a shell with a writable temporary filesystem overlay

apptainer shell --writable-tmpfs {{path/to/image.sif}}

Context

tldr-pages: linux/apptainer shell

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