Nowadays, container virtualization is a lightweight alternative to the hypervisor-based approach. Recent improvements in Linux kernel allow to execute containers on smart objects, that are, single board computers running Linux-based operating systems. By considering several IoT application scenarios, it is crucial to rely on cloud services able to deploy and customize pieces of software running on target smart objects. To achieve this goal, in this paper, we focus our attention on a Message Oriented Middleware for Cloud (MON4C), a system designed to compose cloud facilities by means of a flexible federation-enabled communication system. Its objective is to provide Internet of Things (IoT) services in a complex smart environment, such as a smart city, where smart objects interact each others and with the cloud infrastructure. More specifically, we discuss how MOM4C can be extended to support container virtualization on Linux embedded devices in order to easily deploy IoT applications in a flexible fashion and we present the design of related software modules.