LXD is a manager for Linux-based containers (LXC), offering a user experience similar to virtual machines without the same overheads.
Using LXD to install MAAS into containers is a good choice for users who want to test MAAS, or who may want to continue leveraging an existing container architecture or policy.
MAAS running with LXD has the following requirements:
- a network bridge on the LXD host (e.g. lxdbr0)
- LXD and ZFS
- a container profile
Install LXD and ZFS
Begin by installing LXD and ZFS:
sudo apt install lxd zfsutils-linux
sudo modprobe zfs
sudo lxd init
The sudo lxd init command will trigger a series of configuration questions. Except in the case where the randomly chosen subnet may conflict with an existing one in your local environment, all questions can be answered with their default values.
The bridge network is configured via a second round of questions and is named lxdbr0 by default.
Create a LXC profile for MAAS
First create a container profile by making use of the ‘default’ profile:
lxc profile copy default maas
Second, bind the network interface inside the container (eth0) to the bridge on the physical host (lxdbr0):
lxc profile device set maas eth0 parent lxdbr0
Thirdly, the maas container profile needs to be edited to include a specific set of privileges. Enter the following to open the profile in your editor of choice:
lxc profile edit maas
And replace the {} after config with the following (excluding config:):
config:
raw.lxc: |-
lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 10:237 rwm
lxc.apparmor.profile = unconfined
lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = b 7:* rwm
security.privileged: "true"
The final step adds the 8 necessary loop devices to LXC:
for i in `seq 0 7`; do lxc profile device add maas loop$i unix-block path=/dev/loop$i; done
When correctly configured, the above command outputs Device loop0 added to maas for each loop device.
Launch and access the LXD container
Launch the LXD container:
lxc launch -p maas ubuntu:18.04 bionic-maas
Once the container is running, it can be accessed with:
lxc exec bionic-maas bash
Install MAAS
In the container (or containers),install MAAS.