Skip to content

Balanced Variant (Recommended)

~46 MB — The sweet spot for daily debugging.

The default and recommended choice for nearly all Kubernetes troubleshooting tasks.

When to Use Balanced

  • Debugging running application pods
  • Daily Kubernetes workflows and incident response
  • Process tracing, network inspection, system diagnostics
  • When in doubt, start here

Pull Tags

Latest: 

ghcr.io/ibtisam-iq/debugbox              # Most common
ghcr.io/ibtisam-iq/debugbox:latest
ghcr.io/ibtisam-iq/debugbox:balanced

Production (pinned version): 

ghcr.io/ibtisam-iq/debugbox:1.0.0           # Short form (recommended)
ghcr.io/ibtisam-iq/debugbox:balanced-1.0.0  # Explicit form

Quick Usage

Kubernetes (Most Common)

# Default — balanced variant
kubectl debug my-pod -it --image=ghcr.io/ibtisam-iq/debugbox

# Explicit tag
kubectl debug my-pod -it --image=ghcr.io/ibtisam-iq/debugbox:balanced

# Standalone
kubectl run debug --rm -it --image=ghcr.io/ibtisam-iq/debugbox --restart=Never

Docker

docker run -it ghcr.io/ibtisam-iq/debugbox
docker run -it ghcr.io/ibtisam-iq/debugbox:1.0.0  # Production

What's Included

Balanced includes all lite tools plus 21 additional packages for system debugging, process inspection, and Kubernetes workflows.

→ Complete balanced tool list with examples

Key additions over lite:

  • Shell & Editors: bash, vim, nano
  • Process Tools: strace, lsof, htop, ps, top
  • Network Advanced: tcpdump, socat, nmap, mtr, iperf3, iftop
  • Kubernetes Helpers: kubectx, kubens
  • Version Control: git
  • Compression: tar, gzip

Shell Helpers

Balanced includes 6+ custom shell functions for rapid debugging:

→ Complete shell helper reference with examples

Quick reference:

  • ll() — ls -alF alias
  • json() / yaml() — Pretty-print data
  • ports() — List listening ports
  • connections() — Show active connections
  • routes() — Display routing table
  • k8s-info — Current Kubernetes context

When to Switch

Downgrade to Lite Variant? Save 32 MB if you only need basic connectivity.

Upgrade to Power Variant? Need packet analysis, routing tools, or scripting.

→ Variants Overview | Real-world Examples | Troubleshooting