DISTROBOX-EPHEMERAL(1)

💖 DISTROBOX-EPHEMERAL 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the DISTROBOX-EPHEMERAL(1) page — this is the User Manual entry for distrobox-ephemeral, and yes we are gonna read the whole thing together, no skipping, i gotchu 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

distrobox ephemeral

distrobox-ephemeral

like, that's it, that's the name, that's her 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

distrobox-ephemeral creates a temporary distrobox that is automatically destroyed when the command is terminated.

not me describing a whole container that literally ghosts you the second the command ends 😭 it's giving "we were never here" energy and honestly? iconic. no cap.

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

distrobox ephemeral

and here are her flags, all of them, every single one, no crumbs left behind:

• --root/-r — launch podman/docker/lilipod with root privileges. note that if you need root this is the preferred way over "sudo distrobox" (note: if using a program other than 'sudo' for root privileges is necessary, specify it through the DBX_SUDO_PROGRAM env variable, or 'distrobox_sudo_program' config variable)
• --verbose/-v — show more verbosity. she talks more. we love a yapper 👑
• --help/-h — show this message
• --/-e — end arguments execute the rest as command to execute at login — default: default ${USER}'s shell
• --version/-V — show version

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🌸 EXAMPLES 🌸

okay here's the part where we actually do stuff, bestie:

distrobox-ephemeral --image alpine:latest -- cat /etc/os-release

distrobox-ephemeral --root --verbose --image alpine:latest --volume /opt:/opt

You can also use flags from distrobox-create to customize the ephemeral container to run.

like, mix and match, build your little dream container, go off 🧚

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• distrobox-create --help
• man distrobox-create

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💜 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 💜

distrobox-ephemeral calls distrobox-create, SEE ALSO distrobox-create(1) for a list of supported environment variables to use.

so if you're looking for the env var lore, it's not here, it's over there. go check her out, she's got the whole list 💖

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heads up bestie: that auto-destroy thing is the whole point. the container is temporary — when the command terminates, it's gone. no lingering vibes, no leftovers, don't go looking for her afterwards 🙈

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Distrobox · Mar 2026 · that's a wrap on DISTROBOX-EPHEMERAL(1), ty for coming to my ted talk, slay, periodt ⭐💅✨