c-ray

A container management TUI with deep runtime introspection capabilities. Supports containerd, CRI-O, Docker (Classic / containerd image store), and Docker Desktop on macOS.

Screenshots

Container Detail View

Container Layers View

Features

Container Management

• Container List: ID, name, image, status, uptime, Pod association
• Container Tree View: Hierarchical display of Pod and container relationships
• Container Detail Pages:
  • Summary (status, PID, start time, restart count)
  • Environment variables (with Kubernetes annotations)
  • Process Top view (CPU, memory, RSS real-time monitoring)
  • Process tree (hierarchical process relationships)
  • Process list (detailed information)
  • Mount browser (with source tracking and status markers)
  • Image layers viewer (snapshots, compression info, disk usage)
  • Network info (CNI, DNS, port mappings, multiple IPs)
  • Runtime info (OCI config, runc state, CRI metadata)
  • Storage info (writable layer, snapshot usage)

Image Management

• Image List: Name, digest, size, creation time
• Image Details: Tags, config, content path
• Image Layer Analysis:
  • Layer structure visualization
  • Compressed/uncompressed digests
  • Snapshot storage status
  • Disk usage statistics
  • Container layer overlay display

Pod Management

• Pod List: Name, namespace, UID, container count
• Pod Association: Bidirectional navigation between containers and Pods

Deep Runtime Introspection

• CRI Metadata Integration: Mounts, network, and state info from CRI
• Mount Source Tracking:
  • cri: CRI-configured mounts
  • runtime-default: Runtime default mounts
  • live-extra: Runtime dynamically added mounts
• Mount Status: declared+live / declared-only / live-only
• CNI Network Details: Interfaces, routes, DNS, port mappings
• Process Resource Monitoring: CPU usage, memory RSS, memory percentage

Installation

Download the binary for your platform from the latest release:

Platform	File
Linux amd64	cray-linux-amd64
Linux arm64	cray-linux-arm64
macOS Intel	cray-darwin-amd64
macOS Apple Silicon	cray-darwin-arm64

# Replace <file> with the filename matching your platform
curl -fsSL -o /usr/local/bin/cray \
  https://github.com/icebergu/c-ray/releases/latest/download/<file>
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/cray

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/icebergu/c-ray.git && cd c-ray
make build

Usage

TUI Mode

# Start TUI (default, auto-detect runtime)
cray

# Or explicitly specify
cray tui

Other commands

# If auto-detection fails, specify socket explicitly
cray -socket /run/containerd/containerd.sock

# Specify containerd
cray -socket /run/containerd/containerd.sock -namespace k8s.io

# Common pattern for plain containerd
cray -socket /run/containerd/containerd.sock -namespace default

# Specify CRI-O
cray -socket /run/crio/crio.sock

# Specify Docker
cray -socket /var/run/docker.sock

# Full options
cray -socket /run/containerd/containerd.sock -namespace k8s.io -timeout 30

CLI Mode

Suitable for non-interactive environments (CI/CD, remote execution):

# Container operations
cray test list-containers
cray test container-detail <container-id>
cray test container-processes <container-id>
cray test container-top <container-id>
cray test container-mounts <container-id>
cray test container-layers <container-id>

# Image operations
cray test list-images
cray test image-detail <image-ref>
cray test image-layers <image-id>

# Pod operations
cray test list-pods

TUI Keybindings

Key	Action
Up/Down or j/k	Navigate list
Enter	Enter detail / Select
Esc or q	Go back / Exit
Tab	Switch view tabs
1-9	Quick switch detail page tabs
r	Refresh data
/	Search / Filter

Testing in Kind/Docker

# Use test script
./scripts/test-in-kind.sh

# Manually copy to kind node
GOOS=linux GOARCH=arm64 go build -o bin/cray-linux ./cmd/cray
cat bin/cray-linux | docker exec -i kind-control-plane bash -c "cat > /usr/local/bin/cray && chmod +x /usr/local/bin/cray"
docker exec kind-control-plane cray test list-containers

Supported Runtimes

c-ray connects to multiple container runtimes through a unified abstraction layer. It automatically detects available sockets and selects the backend in this order: CRI-O, CRI-enabled containerd, Docker, and finally plain containerd. If all detection fails, it will error out and prompt you to use -socket or CRAY_SOCKET to specify explicitly.

Runtime	Socket Path	Data Source	Notes
containerd	/run/containerd/containerd.sock	containerd API + CRI	Native containerd with namespace isolation, suitable for Kubernetes nodes
CRI-O	/run/crio/crio.sock	containers/storage + CRI	Uses containers/storage library for direct storage metadata access, CRI supplements runtime state
Docker (Classic)	/var/run/docker.sock	Docker Engine API	Traditional Docker graphdriver mode (overlay2, etc.)
Docker (containerd)	/var/run/docker.sock	Docker Engine API + containerd	Delegates image operations to containerd when containerd snapshotter is detected
Docker Desktop (macOS)	N/A (via launcher bridge)	Docker socket inside Docker Desktop VM	On macOS, uses a launcher to execute Linux binary via chroot in a Docker container

Contributing

Issues and Pull Requests are welcome!

License

MIT License