.. _containerCreation:
.. toctree::
Creating Containers
___________________
Make sure you have gone through :ref:`installingVPP` on the system you want to create containers on.
After VPP is installed, get root privileges with:
.. code-block:: console
$ sudo bash
Then install packages for containers such as lxc:
.. code-block:: console
# apt-get install bridge-utils lxc
As quoted from the `lxc.conf manpage <https://linuxcontainers.org/it/lxc/manpages/man5/lxc.conf.5.html>`_, "container configuration is held in the config stored in the container's directory.
A basic configuration is generated at container creation time with the default's recommended for the chosen template as well as extra default keys coming from the default.conf file."
"That *default.conf* file is either located at /etc/lxc/default.conf or for unprivileged containers at ~/.config/lxc/default.conf."
Since we want to ping between two containers, we'll need to **add to this file**.
Look at the contents of *default.conf*, which should initially look like this:
.. code-block:: console
# cat /etc/lxc/default.conf
lxc.network.type = veth
lxc.network.link = lxcbr0
lxc.network.flags = up
lxc.network.hwaddr = 00:16:3e:xx:xx:xx
As you can see, by default there is one veth interface.
Now you will *append to this file* so that each container you create will have an interface for a Linux bridge and an unconsumed second interface.
You can do this by piping *echo* output into *tee*, where each line is separated with a newline character *\\n* as shown below. Alternatively, you can manually add to this file with a text editor such as **vi**, but make sure you have root privileges.
.. code-block:: console
# echo -e "lxc.network.name = veth0\nlxc.network.type = veth\nlxc.network.name = veth_link1" | sudo tee -a /etc/lxc/default.conf
Inspect the contents again to verify the file was indeed modified:
.. code-block:: console
# cat /etc/lxc/default.conf
lxc.network.type = veth
lxc.network.link = lxcbr0
lxc.network.flags = up
lxc.network.hwaddr = 00:16:3e:xx:xx:xx
lxc.network.name = veth0
lxc.network.type = veth
lxc.network.name = veth_link1
After this, we're ready to create the containers.
Creates an Ubuntu Xenial container named "cone".
.. code-block:: console
# lxc-create -t download -n cone -- --dist ubuntu --release xenial --arch amd64 --keyserver hkp://p80.pool.sks-keyservers.net:80
If successful, you'll get an output similar to this:
.. code-block:: console
You just created an Ubuntu xenial amd64 (20180625_07:42) container.
To enable SSH, run: apt install openssh-server
No default root or user password are set by LXC.
Make another container "ctwo".
.. code-block:: console
# lxc-create -t download -n ctwo -- --dist ubuntu --release xenial --arch amd64 --keyserver hkp://p80.pool.sks-keyservers.net:80
List your containers to verify they exist:
.. code-block:: console
# lxc-ls
cone ctwo
Start the first container:
.. code-block:: console
# lxc-start --name cone
And verify its running:
.. code-block:: console
# lxc-ls --fancy
NAME STATE AUTOSTART GROUPS IPV4 IPV6
cone RUNNING 0 - - -
ctwo STOPPED 0 - - -
.. note::
Here are some `lxc container commands <https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/lxc.html.en-GB#lxc-basic-usage>`_ you may find useful:
.. code-block:: console
$ sudo lxc-ls --fancy
$ sudo lxc-start --name u1 --daemon
$ sudo lxc-info --name u1
$ sudo lxc-stop --name u1
$ sudo lxc-destroy --name u1
