CapabilitiesIsolation
Root access
You (and the agent) can act as the administrator: install anything, change system settings.
Short answer: 16 of 16 providers offer it fully: Agent 37, Blaxel, Boat, Cloudflare Sandbox, Daytona, E2B, InstaBox, Lizard, Modal, Morph, Runtime, Sandboxer, Sprites, Tensorlake, Vercel Sandbox and boxd. Checked 29 October 2026.
Who offers it
Part of Isolation: what kind of computer you get, which explains why it matters.
Fully: Agent 37, Blaxel, Boat, boxd, Cloudflare Sandbox, Daytona, E2B, InstaBox, Lizard, Modal, Morph, Runtime, Sandboxer, Sprites, Tensorlake and Vercel Sandbox.
Commands run as the image's normal user unless you ask for root.
docs-confirmed “pass "root" to run as root, for example to install system packages with apt-get” Source
docs-confirmed “By default, everything inside a sandbox runs as root.” Source
docs-confirmed “Passwordless sudo gives full root.” Source
docs-confirmed “You get a normal shell on the machine, as the boxd user with passwordless sudo.” Source
There is no user separation inside one sandbox: every process has the same rights as root.
docs-confirmed “every process has the same Linux capabilities as root” Source
The default shell user is daytona, but code runs as root inside the container.
docs-confirmed “Code runs as root inside the sandbox without affecting the runner.” Source
Note: The default template runs as an ordinary user called user, not root; root has to be set in the template.
docs-confirmed “The default user in the template is user with the /home/user (home directory) as the working directory.” Source
docs-confirmed “passwordless sudo with apt for anything else” Source
docs-confirmed “commands run as root unless you pass user” Source
docs-confirmed “Modal containers always run as root (uid 0).” Source
docs-confirmed “The examples assume a Debian-based instance such as morphvm-minimal and a root shell” Source
Commands start as the user runtime; sudo works without a password.
docs-confirmed “sudo works without a password. You are root inside your own sandbox.” Source
docs-confirmed “Inside it you are an ordinary Linux user with sudo.” Source
docs-confirmed “sudo apt install -y openssh-server” Source
Commands run as the non-root user tl-user, which has passwordless sudo.
docs-confirmed “a non-root user with passwordless sudo” Source
docs-confirmed “Provides full root access to install any package or binary” Source
Related
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