LXD¶

LXD ([lɛks'di:]🔈) 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.

In this documentation¶

Start here¶

Follow the tutorial for a guided introduction to LXD, and refer to these guides for installation and initialization instructions.

System containers and virtual machines¶

LXD runs workloads on system containers or virtual machines. These instances are created using images and can be grouped under projects.

Clusters¶

LXD servers can be joined together into clusters, and clusters can be connected through cluster links.

Storage and networks¶

Each LXD server is configured with storage and network options. These guides will help you understand and work with these resources.

Access LXD¶

These guides help you to access and communicate with LXD.

Quality¶

Follow these guides to secure your LXD deployment and optimize its performance.

Lifecycle and administration¶

These guides cover lifecycle and ongoing administration concerns.

How this documentation is organized¶

This documentation uses the Diátaxis documentation structure.

The Tutorial takes you step-by-step through installing and initializing LXD, and learning how to use basic features such as launching instances.
The How-to guides assume you have basic familiarity with LXD. They walk you through specific tasks, such as creating storage pools and managing clusters.
The Reference guides include configuration options, API references, and other technical details.
The Explanation section includes topic overviews and detailed explanations of key concepts, such as the difference between system containers and virtual machines.

Project and community¶

LXD is a member of the Canonical family. It’s an open source project that warmly welcomes community contributions, suggestions, fixes, and constructive feedback.