About containers and VMs

LXD provides support for two different types of instances: system containers and virtual machines.

When running a system container, LXD simulates a virtual version of a full operating system. To do this, it uses the functionality provided by the kernel running on the host system.

When running a virtual machine, LXD uses the hardware of the host system, but the kernel is provided by the virtual machine. Therefore, virtual machines can be used to run, for example, a different operating system.

Application containers vs. system containers

Application containers (as provided by, for example, Docker) package a single process or application. System containers, on the other hand, simulate a full operating system and let you run multiple processes at the same time.

Therefore, application containers are suitable to provide separate components, while system containers provide a full solution of libraries, applications, databases and so on. In addition, you can use system containers to create different user spaces and isolate all processes belonging to each user space, which is not what application containers are intended for.

Application and system containers

Virtual machines vs. system containers

Virtual machines emulate a physical machine, using the hardware of the host system from a full and completely isolated operating system. System containers, on the other hand, use the OS kernel of the host system instead of creating their own environment. If you run several system containers, they all share the same kernel, which makes them faster and more light-weight than virtual machines.

With LXD, you can create both system containers and virtual machines. You should use a system container to leverage the smaller size and increased performance if all functionality you require is compatible with the kernel of your host operating system. If you need functionality that is not supported by the OS kernel of your host system or you want to run a completely different OS, use a virtual machine.

Virtual machines and system containers

Instance types in LXD

LXD supports the following types of instances:

Containers

Containers are the default type for instances. They are currently the most complete implementation of LXD instances and support more features than virtual machines.

Containers are implemented through the use of liblxc (LXC).

Virtual machines

Virtual machines are natively supported since version 4.0 of LXD. Thanks to a built-in agent, they can be used almost like containers.

LXD uses qemu to provide the VM functionality.

Note

Currently, virtual machines support fewer features than containers, but the plan is to support the same set of features for both instance types in the future.

To see which features are available for virtual machines, check the condition field in the Instance options documentation.