I using a package on Zabbly I installed (I think) Incus on a clean Debian 12 machine. I am unsure exactly what I installed though because I did not specify which of the Stable packages I wanted on the initial download and install script. Was I even supposed to?
But it seems to be responding to commands such as adding myself to GID incus-admin and creating the group itself. I could use some info such as where the code lives on my Deb12 machine. I am stumped on what to do next as I am getting confused about whether the pre and post install instructions just apply to compiled-from-source builds. I did manage to init with incus --minimal and found the YAML file I unknowingly created. The tipoff was when I tried configuring Incus and saw the script complain I had already added some options and could not duplcate them.
At this point I m unsure I can add any value based on my dungeons-and-dragons approach to learning Incus so far. I was hoping there was at least an admin txt or curses menu that would give me the big picture as I stumbled along. Perhaps I am simply not finding one if it exists.
Another consideration is that I am unsure of what level of audience expertise you would prefer the documentation be written to. I have a few ideas for helping noobs like myself but hesitate to recommend them. I think the existing documentation is clear and thorough enough that experienced devops can use it to great benefit.
If you have ideas about how then project might be able to use me I would rather stay on if I can be a help. In the meantime I can follow progress on the chat and elsewhere and perhaps learn by helping with testing since I have a fleet of capable PCs to offer.
Hey there, so sounds like you installed the incus package following the instructions at GitHub - zabbly/incus: Incus package repository. Assuming you used the instructions at the top of the page, that would be the stable repository, the daily builds would have been the instructions a bit further down.
You can confirm that with dpkg -l incus. If it gives you a version that starts with 0.4, then it’s the stable package.
The incus admin init --minimal will have given you a working environment, so you can now use Incus and start creating containers or virtual machines. Basically everything that you can see in the online tutorial at Linux Containers - Incus - Try it online should now work locally on your system.
I tried the online demo a few times but did not see the self-running demo,to watch it. I will go back to it now I know it is there. Also stumbled onto the files location while looking at Backups instructions. I think I got confused between the old LXC Containers instructions, the ones on Github and the ones on Zabbly. I presume only Github and Zabbly will remain once the divorce is final. If they are identical that will be a help. BTW I noticed the readme.md in the top of the righthand panel on Github is dead. Should it be? Maybe a short message recommending the Zabbly narrative could live there? Tho similar, the Zabbly presentation seems clearer to me.
The instructions I used referred to picking between 4 choices, 2 Ubuntu, Debian 11 and Debian 12. I thought I had to put Bookworm into the bracketed expression in the command line but forgot to do so. So I was guessing somehow it made the choice for me because it ran without error. Thanks for the encouraging help!
This currently favors people using the Zabbly packages and Debian or Ubuntu but will soon be changed given that we now have solid alternatives for other distributions and we don’t want to force people onto a specific distribution or packages.
The more complete installation instructions are linked from the getting started page and send you to How to install Incus - Incus documentation which has the Debian/Ubuntu, Gentoo, NixOS, Fedora and Arch package instructions (I’ll re-order those to be in alphabetical order too).
LXC isn’t dead, nor is it related to LXD, it’s the project providing the lower level (library) components used by Incus and others to run containers. For Incus users, it’s just an implementation detail that they shouldn’t have to worry about and following the Incus getting started and installation instructions, it’s not something that’s mentioned outside of the advanced instructions for those building things from source.
The first steps and tutorial were what I have been looking for. All went well and I have a better conceptual understanding of what each step in the installation and configuration entail. I have not found a console equivalent command in Incus so my next step is to enable network access to the container via ssh. Then I hope to observe network traffic on server and container/vm to compare packet captures. It will be informative to see what the container sees. I was surprised to observe how much TCP traffic Wireshark revealed coming from Google, IANA and IP Addr registrars while doing simple captures on my laptop.
Your documentation effort is impeccable Stephane. I cannot think of anything to add at this point, at least until I finish studying all there is yet to read.