firecracker-microvm/firecracker · error

Failed to sanitize the Jailer process: {}

Error message

Failed to sanitize the Jailer process: {}

What it means

Error "Failed to sanitize the Jailer process: {}" thrown in firecracker-microvm/firecracker.

Source

Thrown at src/jailer/src/main.rs:327

        .into_string()
        .map_err(|err| JailerError::OsStringParsing(path.as_ref().to_path_buf(), err))?;
    CString::new(path_str).map_err(JailerError::CStringParsing)
}

/// We wrap the actual main in order to pretty print an error with Display trait.
fn main() -> Result<(), JailerError> {
    let result = main_exec();
    if let Err(e) = result {
        eprintln!("{}", e);
        Err(e)
    } else {
        Ok(())
    }
}

fn main_exec() -> Result<(), JailerError> {
    sanitize_process()
        .unwrap_or_else(|err| panic!("Failed to sanitize the Jailer process: {}", err));

    let mut arg_parser = build_arg_parser();
    arg_parser
        .parse_from_cmdline()
        .map_err(JailerError::ArgumentParsing)?;
    let arguments = arg_parser.arguments();

    if arguments.flag_present("help") {
        println!("Jailer v{}\n", JAILER_VERSION);
        println!("{}\n", arg_parser.formatted_help());
        println!("Any arguments after the -- separator will be supplied to the jailed binary.\n");
        return Ok(());
    }

    if arguments.flag_present("version") {
        println!("Jailer v{}\n", JAILER_VERSION);
        return Ok(());
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to 0a745def42)

Solutions

1. Run the jailer with the privileges required to chroot, create namespaces, and drop privileges.
2. Verify the chroot base directory, uid/gid, cgroup, and seccomp configuration passed to the jailer are valid.

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at src/jailer/src/main.rs:327 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of firecracker-microvm/firecracker@0a745def42 (2026-08-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/54cc7abdc21a030f. Report an issue: GitHub.