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Glossary

What is container isolation?

Answer in brief

Isolation built from Linux namespaces, cgroups, capabilities and seccomp, where workloads share the host kernel.

By the Agent Sandboxes editors · Updated

Container isolation in agent sandboxes

Standard containers (Docker, containerd, runc) separate processes with kernel features rather than a separate kernel. That makes them fast and dense, but a kernel vulnerability or runtime bug can become a container escape — for example CVE-2019-5736 and CVE-2024-21626 in runc.

For trusted code, containers are usually fine. For untrusted, model-generated code from many users, most providers add a stronger layer: gVisor, Kata Containers or a microVM.

Sources

  1. nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-21626
  2. nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-5736

Cite this page

Agent Sandboxes. (2026). What is container isolation?. agentsandboxes.org. Last reviewed November 8, 2026. https://agentsandboxes.org/glossary/container-isolation/

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