Jail Lifecycle Management

The jstart, jstop, and jremove (synonym jdestroy) commands manage the FreeBSD jail lifecycle. All three commands support powerful target selection mechanisms: single names, lists, masks, and SQL queries.

Built-in help and examples are available for each command:

cbsd jstart --help
cbsd jstop --help
cbsd jremove --help

Basic Syntax

cbsd jstart jname=<jailname>
cbsd jstop jname=<jailname>
cbsd jremove jname=<jailname>

jremove and jdestroy are functionally identical.

Command Behavior

jstart — starts a stopped jail. If the jail is already running, the command will display an appropriate message.
jstop — stops a jail via exec_stop (defaults to /bin/sh /etc/rc.shutdown). If the jail is not running, the command does nothing.
jremove — completely removes a jail. If the jail is running, it will be automatically stopped before removal. The command deletes the jail's filesystem (ZFS dataset or directory), fstab entries, and associated snapshots.

Bulk Operations

CBSD supports performing operations on a group of jails simultaneously.

Wildcards

The jname parameter accepts patterns with the * character:

# Start all jails whose name starts with 'sd'
cbsd jstart jname='sd*'

# Stop ALL jails on the host
cbsd jstop jname='*'

# Remove all jails starting with 'test'
cbsd jremove jname='test*'

Multiple explicit names

Instead of jname=, you can list jails directly:

cbsd jstop web1 web2 web3
cbsd jstart db1 db2 db3 cache1

Combining approaches

You can use both mechanisms together:

cbsd jstart jname='prod-*' staging1 staging2

Parallel execution

Operations on multiple jails can be performed in parallel. Behavior is configured via the parallel parameter in cbsd initenv-tui.

SQL WHERE — filtering by conditions

The most powerful feature is filtering jails using an SQL-like condition after the WHERE keyword. This allows precise control over which jails are affected by the operation.

Syntax

cbsd <command> WHERE <sql-condition>

<sql-condition> — a standard SQL expression supporting:

Comparisons: =, !=, <, >
Logical operators: AND, OR
Pattern matching: LIKE
Grouping with parentheses

Examples

Stop all running jails with autostart enabled

cbsd jstop WHERE status='1' AND astart='1'

This will stop only those jails that are currently running (status='1') and have autostart enabled (astart='1').

Start jails with autostart, VNET, and a specific IP range

cbsd jstart WHERE astart=1 AND vnet=1 AND ip4_addr LIKE '1%'

Starts jails where: - Autostart is enabled (astart=1) - Isolated network space is configured (vnet=1) - IPv4 address starts with 1 (e.g., 10.0.0.x, 192.168.x.x)

Stop all non-VNET jails

cbsd jstop WHERE vnet=0

Remove all hidden jails

cbsd jremove WHERE hidden=1

Complex condition with OR

cbsd jstart WHERE (astart=1 AND status=0) OR jname='emergency'

Starts all stopped jails with autostart enabled, plus the specific emergency jail regardless of its settings.

Available fields for WHERE

The WHERE condition can reference any columns from the jail table in the CBSD database. Main fields:

Field	Type	Description
`jname`	TEXT	Jail name
`status`	INT	Current status: `0` = stopped, `1` = running
`astart`	INT	Autostart: `0` = off, `1` = on
`vnet`	INT	VNET isolation: `0` = off, `1` = on
`ip4_addr`	TEXT	IPv4 address
`hidden`	INT	Hidden flag: `0` = visible, `1` = hidden
`host_hostname`	TEXT	Jail FQDN hostname
`ver`	TEXT FreeBSD release version
arch TEXT Architecture
path TEXT Path to jail root directory
interface TEXT Network interface
tags TEXT Custom tags
basename TEXT Base release name for clones

Practical scenarios

Emergency shutdown

Stop everything with a single command:

cbsd jstop jname='*'

Or using WHERE:

cbsd jstop WHERE status=1

Production environment restart

cbsd jstop jname='prod-*' cbsd jstart jname='prod-*' ``` ### Cleanup test environments Remove all test jails : ``` bash cbsd jremove jname ='test*' cbsd jremove jname ='tmp*' ```
Or remove all jails with a specific tag:

```bash
cbsd jremove WHERE tags LIKE '%ephemeral%'

Starting only VNET jails after a network update

cbsd jstart WHERE vnet=1 AND astart=1

Removing jails of an older FreeBSD version

cbsd jremove WHERE ver='13.0'