LXD
LXD is a modern, secure and powerful system container and virtual machine manager.
It provides a unified experience for running and managing full Linux systems inside containers or virtual machines. LXD supports images for a large number of Linux distributions (official Ubuntu images and images provided by the community) and is built around a very powerful, yet pretty simple, REST API. LXD scales from one instance on a single machine to a cluster in a full data center rack, making it suitable for running workloads both for development and in production.
LXD allows you to easily set up a system that feels like a small private cloud. You can run any type of workload in an efficient way while keeping your resources optimized.
You should consider using LXD if you want to containerize different environments or run virtual machines, or in general run and manage your infrastructure in a cost-effective way.
Get started
See Getting started in the LXD documentation for installation instructions and first steps.
- Release announcements:
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/lxd/news/ - Release tarballs:
https://github.com/canonical/lxd/releases/ - Documentation:
https://documentation.ubuntu.com/lxd/en/latest/
Status
| Type | Service | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Tests | GitHub |  |
| Go documentation | Godoc |  |
| Static analysis | GoReport | |
| Translations | Weblate |  |
Installing LXD from packages
The LXD daemon only works on Linux but the client tool (lxc) is available on most platforms.
| OS | Format | Command |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Snap | snap install lxd |
| Windows | Chocolatey | choco install lxc |
| macOS | Homebrew | brew install lxc |
The LXD snap packaging repository is available here.
For more instructions on installing LXD for a wide variety of Linux distributions and operating systems, and to install LXD from source, see How to install LXD in the documentation.
Client SDK packages
The LXD project provides SDK client packages for interacting with LXD servers from your own software.
These SDKs are licensed as Apache-2.0.
| Language | URL |
|---|---|
| Go | https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/canonical/lxd/client |
| Python | https://github.com/canonical/pylxd |
For more information on using the LXD API, see REST API in the documentation.
Tools for managing LXD
If you are looking for tools (beyond lxc CLI) to manage LXD at scale (from single server to wide clusters), the following projects can be useful:
| Tool | Link |
|---|---|
| Ansible - connection plugin | https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/repo/published/community/general/content/connection/lxd/ |
| Ansible - inventory plugin | https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/repo/published/community/general/content/inventory/lxd/ |
| Bolt - LXD transport | https://www.puppet.com/docs/bolt/latest/bolt_transports_reference.html#lxd |
| MicroCloud | https://canonical.com/microcloud |
| Packer - LXD builder | https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/integrations/hashicorp/lxd/latest/components/builder/lxd |
| Terraform provider | https://registry.terraform.io/providers/terraform-lxd/lxd |
Security
Consider the following aspects to ensure that your LXD installation is secure:
- Keep your operating system up-to-date and install all available security patches.
- Use only supported LXD versions (LTS releases or monthly feature releases).
- Restrict access to the LXD daemon and the remote API.
- Configure your network interfaces to be secure.
- Do not use privileged containers unless required. If you use privileged containers, put appropriate security measures in place.
See Container security for more information.
See Security for detailed information.
IMPORTANT:
Local access to LXD through the Unix socket always grants full access to LXD. This includes the ability to attach file system paths or devices to any instance as well as tweak the security features on any instance.
Therefore, you should only give such access to users who you'd trust with root access to your system.
Support and community
The following channels are available for you to interact with the LXD community.
Bug reports
You can file bug reports and feature requests at: https://github.com/canonical/lxd/issues/new
Forum
A discussion forum is available at: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/lxd/
IRC
If you prefer live discussions, you can find us in #lxd on irc.libera.chat. See Getting started with IRC if needed.
Commercial support
Commercial support for LXD is available through Ubuntu Pro (Ubuntu Pro (Infra-only) or full Ubuntu Pro). The support covers all LTS versions for five years starting from the day of the release.
See the full service description for detailed information about what support Ubuntu Pro provides.
Documentation
The official documentation is available at: https://documentation.ubuntu.com/lxd/en/latest/
You can find additional resources on the website, on YouTube and in the Tutorials section in the forum.
Contributing
Fixes and new features are greatly appreciated. Make sure to read our contributing guidelines first!