dev-lxc

This is a tidy little Python script I use when I want to quickly create an LXD system container for development purposes. It mounts the current directory in the home directory of the instance.

Installation

It's a single script file. Make sure you have LXD installed and Python 3.10 or higher. Get the file, make it executable, and put it on your PATH somewhere.

Basic Usage

Create an instance

Create an instance using a specific Ubuntu series, by codename:

dev_lxc create jammy

The instance name is generated from the current directory, so you can only have one instance of each series per directory. Names will clash.

If you have a valid YAML file for configuring the instance (nice for if you want it to start with certain packages installed):

dev_lxc create jammy --config ./my-config.yaml

Open a shell in an instance

Once you've created an instance, you can spin up a shell in it:

dev_lxc shell jammy

The default user (ubuntu) should be uid-mapped to your user, so file permissions should be okay.

Exec a command in an instance

dev_lxc exec jammy 'echo "hello"'

This executes using bash, so try not to get too fancy. You can also provide environment variables:

dev_lxc exec jammy 'echo "hello $MITCH"' --env MITCH="mitchell"

Stop or Start an instance

dev_lxc stop jammy

Stops the instance from running. Most other commands (shell, exec) should start the instance if it's stopped before running.

dev_lxc start jammy

Starts it up again.

Remove Instance

dev_lxc remove jammy

This deletes the instance. It is gone for good.