What are Linux namespaces and cgroups, and how do they enable container isolation?

Hard Topic: Linux May 24, 2026

Namespaces provide isolation for system resources so each container sees its own view of the system:

  • pid — isolated process tree (container sees its own PIDs starting at 1)
  • net — isolated network stack (own IP, routing table)
  • mnt — isolated filesystem mounts
  • uts — isolated hostname
  • user — isolated user/group IDs

cgroups (Control Groups) limit and account for resource usage (CPU, memory, I/O) per group of processes. This is how Docker enforces your CPU/memory limits.

Together: namespaces provide isolation (what can be seen), cgroups provide resource limits (how much can be used).

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