How to import physical or virtual machines to LXD instances#

LXD provides a tool (lxd-migrate) to create a LXD instance based on an existing disk or image.

You can run the tool on any Linux machine. It connects to a LXD server and creates a blank instance, which you can configure during or after the migration. The tool then copies the data from the disk or image that you provide to the instance.

The tool can create both containers and virtual machines:

When creating a container, you must provide a disk or partition that contains the root file system for the container. For example, this could be the / root disk of the machine or container where you are running the tool.
When creating a virtual machine, you must provide a bootable disk, partition or image. This means that just providing a file system is not sufficient, and you cannot create a virtual machine from a container that you are running. It is also not possible to create a virtual machine from the physical machine that you are using to do the migration, because the migration tool would be using the disk that it is copying. Instead, you could provide a bootable image, or a bootable partition or disk that is currently not in use.

Complete the following steps to migrate an existing machine to a LXD instance:

Download the bin.linux.lxd-migrate tool from the Assets section of the latest LXD release.
Place the tool on the machine that you want to use to create the instance. Make it executable (usually by running chmod u+x bin.linux.lxd-migrate).
Make sure that the machine has rsync installed. If it is missing, install it (for example, with sudo apt install rsync).
Run the tool:
```
./bin.linux.lxd-migrate
```
The tool then asks you to provide the information required for the migration.

Tip

As an alternative to running the tool interactively, you can provide the configuration as parameters to the command. See ./bin.linux.lxd-migrate --help for more information.
1. Specify the LXD server URL, either as an IP address or as a DNS name.
2. Check and confirm the certificate fingerprint.
3. Choose a method for authentication (see Remote API authentication).
  
  For example, if you choose using a certificate token, log on to the LXD server and create a token for the machine on which you are running the migration tool with lxc config trust add. Then use the generated token to authenticate the tool.
4. Choose whether to create a container or a virtual machine.
5. Specify a name for the instance that you are creating.
6. Provide the path to a root file system (for containers) or a bootable disk, partition or image file (for virtual machines).
7. For containers, optionally add additional file system mounts.
8. For virtual machines, specify whether secure boot is supported.
9. Optionally, configure the new instance. You can do so by specifying profiles, directly setting configuration options or changing storage or network settings.
  
  Alternatively, you can configure the new instance after the migration.
10. When you are done with the configuration, start the migration process.
Expand to see an example output

user@host:~$ ./bin.linux.lxd-migrate
Please provide LXD server URL: https://192.0.2.7:8443Certificate fingerprint: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxok (y/n)? y 1) Use a certificate token2) Use an existing TLS authentication certificate3) Generate a temporary TLS authentication certificatePlease pick an authentication mechanism above: 1Please provide the certificate token: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Remote LXD server: Hostname: bar Version: 5.4 Would you like to create a container (1) or virtual-machine (2)?: 1Name of the new instance: fooPlease provide the path to a root filesystem: /Do you want to add additional filesystem mounts? [default=no]: Instance to be created: Name: foo Project: default Type: container Source: / Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 3Please specify config keys and values (key=value ...): limits.cpu=2 Instance to be created: Name: foo Project: default Type: container Source: / Config: limits.cpu: "2" Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 4Please provide the storage pool to use: defaultDo you want to change the storage size? [default=no]: yesPlease specify the storage size: 20GiB Instance to be created: Name: foo Project: default Type: container Source: / Storage pool: default Storage pool size: 20GiB Config: limits.cpu: "2" Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 5Please specify the network to use for the instance: lxdbr0 Instance to be created: Name: foo Project: default Type: container Source: / Storage pool: default Storage pool size: 20GiB Network name: lxdbr0 Config: limits.cpu: "2" Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 1Instance foo successfully created
When the migration is complete, check the new instance and update its configuration to the new environment. Typically, you must update at least the storage configuration (/etc/fstab) and the network configuration.