Go to Table of Contents

Introduction

Note

If you haven't set up LXD yet, take a look at the Getting-Started Guide first.

This guide gives you more information about several features of LXD.

Configuration of instances

See How to create instances and How to configure instances.

Cloud-init

See How to use cloud-init and the cloud-init documentation.

Server configuration

See LXD documentation - Server settings for all Server configuration options.

Below we will introduce some topics, including:

Projects

You can split your server into projects. Each project can have its own instances, profiles etc.

See LXD documentation - Projects for more information and configuration.

Using distrobuilder to build images

For building your own images, you can use distrobuilder (a tool developed by us).

Install distrobuilder

See How to install distrobuilder.

Write or edit a template

You need an image template (e.g. ubuntu.yaml) to give instructions to distrobuilder.

You can start by using one of the example templates below. Modify those templates so they fit your needs.

See Template details below for an overview of configuration keys.

Example templates

Standard template (includes all available options): https://github.com/lxc/distrobuilder/blob/master/doc/examples/scheme.yaml

Official LXD templates for various distributions: https://github.com/lxc/lxc-ci/tree/master/images

Template details

You can define multiple keys in templates:

Section: Description: Documentation:
image defines distribution, architecture, release etc. see Image
source defines main package source, keys etc. see Source
targets defines configs for specific targets (e.g. LXD-client, instances etc.) see Targets
files defines generators to modify files see Generators
packages defines packages for install or removal; add repositories see Package management
actions defines scripts to be run after specific steps during image building see Actions
mappings maps different terms for architectures for specific distributions (e.g. x86_64: amd64) see Mappings

Note for VMs

You should either build an image with cloud-init support (provides automatic size growth) or set a higher size in the template, because the standard size is relatively small (~4 GB). Alternatively you can also grow it manually.

Build an image

Container image

Build a container image with:

distrobuilder build-lxd filename [target folder]

Replace:

  • filename - with a template file (e.g. ubuntu.yaml).
  • (optional)[target folder] - with the path to a folder of your choice; if not set, distrobuilder will use the current folder

After the image is built, see Import images for how to import your image to LXD.

See How to build images for details.

Virtual machine image

Build a virtual machine image with:

distrobuilder build-lxd filename --vm [target folder]

Replace:

  • filename - with a template file (e.g. ubuntu.yaml).
  • (optional)[target folder] - with the path to a folder of your choice; if not set, distrobuilder will use the current folder

After the image is built, see Import images for how to import your image to LXD.

More information

Distrobuilder GitHub repo

Distrobuilder documentation

Networks

See the LXD documentation for details:

Storage

See the LXD documentation for details:

Storage documentation

Command aliases

You can create internal command aliases with:

lxc alias

List all aliases:

lxc alias list

Create a new alias:

lxc alias add <alias> <target>

For example:

lxc alias add delete "delete -i"

This will link the command lxc delete to lxc delete -i. So if you run lxc delete the LXD-client will run lxc delete -i instead.

Further information & links

You find more information on the following pages:

Contents