This proposal emerged from discussions over email and after a talk at
Plumbers 2024:

    https://lore.kernel.org/all/affb7aff-dc9b-4263-bbd4-a7965c19ac4e@gtucker.io/

The aim is to facilitate reproducing builds for CI bots as well as
developers using containers.  Here's an illustrative example with a
kernel.org toolchain in a Docker image from tuxmake:

    $ scripts/container -i docker.io/tuxmake/korg-clang-21 make LLVM=1 defconfig
      HOSTCC  scripts/basic/fixdep
      HOSTCC  scripts/kconfig/conf.o
    [...]
      HOSTCC  scripts/kconfig/util.o
      HOSTLD  scripts/kconfig/conf
    *** Default configuration is based on 'x86_64_defconfig'
    #
    # configuration written to .config
    #

This patch series also includes a documentation page with all the
relevant details and further examples about how to use the tool.

To go one step further, I'm in the process of preparing reference
container images with kernel.org toolchains and no third-party
dependencies other than the base Debian distro.  See this thread for
more details and options to host them in an upstream way:

    https://lore.kernel.org/all/cc737636-2a43-4a97-975e-4725733f7ee4@gtucker.io/

Say, to run KUnit using the latest kernel.org GCC toolchain:

    scripts/container --shell \
        -i registry.gitlab.com/gtucker/korg-containers/gcc:kunit -- \
        tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py \
            run \
            --arch=x86_64 \
            --cross_compile=x86_64-linux-

---
Changes in v4:
- Add entries to MAINTAINERS for the new script and docs
- Give priority to Podman over Docker when no -r option given
- Update help message and docs regarding Podman priority
- Add note and workaround for out-of-tree builds in the docs
- Mention TuxMake prebuilt images more explicitly in the docs

Changes in v3:
- Refactor common code for Docker and Podman
- Add docs.kernel.org URL in help message
- Use pathlib Python package
- Handle signals in parent process by default
- Add --shell option to use an interactive shell
- Tweak debug messages in verbose mode
- Specify Python 3.10 as minimum version in the docs
- Provide an example env file in the docs
- Update docs regarding interactive shell usage

Changes in v2:
- Drop default image but make -i option required
- Look for Docker and Podman if no runtime specified
- Catch SIGINT from user to abort container with Docker
- Explicitly name each container with a UUID
- Update documentation accordingly

---

Guillaume Tucker (2):
  scripts: add tool to run containerized builds
  Documentation: dev-tools: add container.rst page

 Documentation/dev-tools/container.rst | 227 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 Documentation/dev-tools/index.rst     |   1 +
 MAINTAINERS                           |   7 +
 scripts/container                     | 199 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 4 files changed, 434 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/dev-tools/container.rst
 create mode 100755 scripts/container

-- 
2.47.3

On Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:06:58 +0100, Guillaume Tucker wrote:
> This proposal emerged from discussions over email and after a talk at
> Plumbers 2024:
> 
>     https://lore.kernel.org/all/affb7aff-dc9b-4263-bbd4-a7965c19ac4e@gtucker.io/
> 
> The aim is to facilitate reproducing builds for CI bots as well as
> developers using containers.  Here's an illustrative example with a
> kernel.org toolchain in a Docker image from tuxmake:
> 
> [...]

Applied to

  https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/kbuild/linux.git kbuild-next

Thanks!

[1/2] scripts: add tool to run containerized builds
      (no commit info)
[2/2] Documentation: dev-tools: add container.rst page
      (no commit info)

Please look out for regression or issue reports or other follow up
comments, as they may result in the patch/series getting dropped or
reverted. Patches applied to an "unstable" branch are accepted pending
wider testing in -next and any post-commit review; they will generally
be moved to the main branch in a week if no issues are found.

Best regards,
-- 
Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>