How to use profiles¶
Profiles store a set of configuration options. They can contain Instance options, Devices, and device options.
You can apply any number of profiles to an instance. They are applied in the order they are specified, so the last profile to specify a specific key takes precedence. However, instance-specific configuration always overrides the configuration coming from the profiles.
Note
Profiles can be applied to containers and virtual machines. Therefore, they might contain options and devices that are valid for either type.
When applying a profile that contains configuration that is not suitable for the instance type, this configuration is ignored and does not result in an error.
If you don’t specify any profiles when launching a new instance, the default profile is applied automatically.
This profile defines a network interface and a root disk.
The default profile cannot be renamed or removed.
View profiles¶
Enter the following command to display a list of all available profiles:
lxc profile list
Enter the following command to display the contents of a profile:
lxc profile show <profile_name>
To display all available profiles, send a request to the /1.0/profiles endpoint:
lxc query --request GET /1.0/profiles?recursion=1
To display a specific profile, send a request to that profile:
lxc query --request GET /1.0/profiles/<profile_name>
See GET /1.0/profiles and GET /1.0/profiles/{name} for more information.
Go to the Profiles section to view all available profiles.
To view information about a specific profile, click its line in the overview. To display the full information about a profile, including its configuration, click the profile name to go to the profile detail page.
Create an empty profile¶
Enter the following command to create an empty profile:
lxc profile create <profile_name>
To create an empty profile, send a POST request to the /1.0/profiles endpoint:
lxc query --request POST /1.0/profiles --data '{"name": "<profile_name>"}'
See POST /1.0/profiles for more information.
To create a profile, go to the Profiles section and click Create profile.
Enter at least a profile name and click Create to save the new profile.
Edit a profile¶
You can either set specific configuration options for a profile or edit the full profile. See Instance configuration (and its subpages) for the available options.
Set specific options for a profile¶
To set an instance option for a profile, use the lxc profile set command.
Specify the profile name and the key and value of the instance option:
lxc profile set <profile_name> <option_key>=<option_value> <option_key>=<option_value> ...
To add and configure an instance device for your profile, use the lxc profile device add command.
Specify the profile name, a device name, the device type and maybe device options (depending on the device type):
lxc profile device add <profile_name> <device_name> <device_type> <device_option_key>=<device_option_value> <device_option_key>=<device_option_value> ...
To configure instance device options for a device that you have added to the profile earlier, use the lxc profile device set command:
lxc profile device set <profile_name> <device_name> <device_option_key>=<device_option_value> <device_option_key>=<device_option_value> ...
To set an instance option for a profile, send a PATCH request to the profile.
Specify the key and value of the instance option under the "config" field:
lxc query --request PATCH /1.0/profiles/<profile_name> --data '{
"config": {
"<option_key>": "<option_value>",
"<option_key>": "<option_value>"
}
}'
To add and configure an instance device for your profile, specify the device name, the device type and maybe device options (depending on the device type) under the "devices" field:
lxc query --request PATCH /1.0/profiles/<profile_name> --data '{
"devices": {
"<device_name>": {
"type": "<device_type>",
"<device_option_key>": "<device_option_value>",
"<device_option_key>": "<device_option_value>"
}
}
}'
See PATCH /1.0/profiles/{name} for more information.
To configure a profile, select it from the Profiles overview, switch to the Configuration tab and click Edit profile. You can then configure options for the profile in the same way as you configure instance options.
Edit the full profile¶
Instead of setting each configuration option separately, you can provide all options at once.
Check the contents of an existing profile or instance configuration for the required fields.
For example, the default profile might look like this:
config: {}
description: Default LXD profile
devices:
eth0:
name: eth0
network: lxdbr0
type: nic
root:
path: /
pool: default
type: disk
name: default
used_by:
Instance options are provided as an array under config.
Instance devices and instance device options are provided under devices.
To edit a profile using your standard terminal editor, enter the following command:
lxc profile edit <profile_name>
Alternatively, you can create a YAML file (for example, profile.yaml) with the configuration and write the configuration to the profile with the following command:
lxc profile edit <profile_name> < profile.yaml
To update the entire profile configuration, send a PUT request to the profile:
lxc query --request PUT /1.0/profiles/<profile_name> --data '{
"config": { ... },
"description": "<description>",
"devices": { ... }
}'
See PUT /1.0/profiles/{name} for more information.
To edit the YAML configuration of a profile, go to the profile detail page, switch to the Configuration tab and select YAML configuration. Then click Edit profile.
Edit the YAML configuration as required. Then click Save changes to save the updated configuration.
Important
When doing updates, do not navigate away from the YAML configuration without saving your changes. If you do, your updates are lost.
Apply a profile to an instance¶
Enter the following command to apply a profile to an instance:
lxc profile add <instance_name> <profile_name>
Tip
Check the configuration after adding the profile: lxc config show <instance_name>
You will see that your profile is now listed under profiles.
However, the configuration options from the profile are not shown under config (unless you add the --expanded flag).
The reason for this behavior is that these options are taken from the profile and not the configuration of the instance.
This means that if you edit a profile, the changes are automatically applied to all instances that use the profile.
You can also specify profiles when launching an instance by adding the --profile flag:
lxc launch <image> <instance_name> --profile <profile> --profile <profile> ...
To apply a profile to an instance, add it to the profile list in the instance configuration:
lxc query --request PATCH /1.0/instances/<instance_name> --data '{
"profiles": [ "default", "<profile_name>" ]
}'
See PATCH /1.0/instances/{name} for more information.
You can also specify profiles when creating an instance:
lxc query --request POST /1.0/instances --data '{
"name": "<instance_name>",
"profiles": [ "default", "<profile_name>" ],
"source": {
"alias": "<image_alias>",
"protocol": "simplestreams",
"server": "<server_URL>",
"type": "image"
}
}'
To apply a profile to an instance, select the instance from the Instances overview, switch to the Configuration tab and click Edit instance. You can then select a profile from the drop-down list, or click Add profile to attach another profile in addition to the one (or more) that are already attached to the instance.
If you attach more than one profile to an instance, you can specify the order in which the profiles are applied by moving each profile up or down the list.
You can also apply profiles in the same way when creating an instance.
Remove a profile from an instance¶
Enter the following command to remove a profile from an instance:
lxc profile remove <instance_name> <profile_name>
To remove a profile from an instance, send a PATCH request to the instance configuration with the new profile list. For example, to revert back to using only the default profile:
lxc query --request PATCH /1.0/instances/<instance_name> --data '{
"profiles": [ "default" ]
}'
See PATCH /1.0/instances/{name} for more information.
To remove a profile from an instance, select the instance from the Instances overview, switch to the Configuration tab and click Edit instance. Click the Delete link next to a profile to remove it from the instance.