containerctl

README

containerctl

A lightweight terminal UI for Docker container management, built for speed over remote SSH connections

Overview

containerctl removes the friction from managing containers over SSH. It’s a lightweight CLI that lets you instantly inspect, control, and tail logs from containers — perfect for remote servers where you want speed, not tooling overhead.

It sits as a thin layer between the tview TUI framework and the Moby Docker client. It supports connecting to a remote Docker Engine API directly over SSH, so you can manage containers on a remote host without SSHing in manually.

Behavior

Local mode (no --host)

Connects to a local Docker API-compatible socket using the first available option:

1. DOCKER_HOST, DOCKER_API_VERSION, DOCKER_CERT_PATH or DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY environment variable
2. --docker-host flag
3. Default: unix:///var/run/docker.sock

Remote mode (--host)

Connects securely over SSH. Host key verification is enforced via ~/.ssh/known_hosts.

If a ~/.ssh/config entry matches the given host, values for HostName, Port, User, or IdentityFile are read from it and take precedence over command-line arguments to replicate OpenSSH behavior.

Username is resolved in this order:

1. --username flag
2. user@hostname syntax in --host
3. Current system user

Authentication uses password if --ask-password is set, otherwise a private key resolved in this order:

1. --identity-file flag (must be inside ~/.ssh/)
2. ~/.ssh/config IdentityFile entry for the host
3. Default keys: ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, id_rsa, id_ecdsa

Docker Host on the remote host (note: DOCKER_HOST, DOCKER_API_VERSION, DOCKER_CERT_PATH and DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY are ignored in remote mode):

1. --docker-host flag
2. Default: unix:///var/run/docker.sock

Examples

  # Connect to local Docker
  containerctl

  # Connect to remote host using default SSH key from ~/.ssh/config
  containerctl --host my-host

  # Connect to remote host using with SSH key
  containerctl --host my-host:23 --identity-file ~/.ssh/id_rsa

  # Connect to remote host with username embedded in host and password prompted
  containerctl --host username@my-host --ask-password true

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Requirements

• Go 1.26+

Installation

git clone https://github.com/Br0ce/containerctl.git
cd containerctl
make build

The binary will be placed at ./bin/containerctl.

Usage

./bin/containerctl
# or
make run

Development

Install dependencies and tooling:

make setup

Available make targets:

Target	Description
build	Build the binary to ./bin/
run	Run directly via go run
test	Run tests (short, parallel)
test-v	Run tests with verbose output
test-race	Run tests with race detector
lint	Run golangci-lint
format	Format code with go fmt
tidy	Tidy and vendor dependencies
clean	Remove build artifacts

Acknowledgements

• Inspired by k9s
• TUI built with tview by @rivo
• Docker integration via the Moby Go client

License

Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE.