NAME

       autopkgtest-virt-lxc - autopkgtest virtualisation server using LXC

SYNOPSIS

       autopkgtest [...] -- lxc [options] lxc-container [-- extra lxc-start args...]

DESCRIPTION

       autopkgtest-virt-lxc  provides  an  autopkgtest  virtualisation  server  using  LXC.  It  adapts  the raw
       functionality provided by the lxc-* tools for use by autopkgtest.

       Normally autopkgtest-virt-lxc will be invoked by autopkgtest.

       You can conveniently create a suitable container using the autopkgtest-build-lxc(1) script.

REQUIREMENTS

       autopkgtest-virt-lxc assumes that you have already prepared a suitable Debian based LXC  container.   See
       lxc-create(1)  for  how  to create containers, and particularly autopkgtest-build-lxc(1) for conveniently
       creating standard autopkgtest containers.

OPTIONS

       -e | --ephemeral
              This option makes use of lxc-start-ephemeral to create temporary container  overlays,  instead  of
              the default behaviour of cloning your containers.

              This  can  be  used  to  dramatically  improve performance, although you may see issues due to the
              overlayfs filesystem as used by lxc-start-ephemeral not being completely transparent (e.  g.  seen
              with  tar failing when running LXC within Qemu). Before using this option in automation you should
              ensure that tests that involve large I/O work as expected.

              Note that ephemeral containers do not support rebooting with LXC 1.x. This does work with  LXC  >=
              2.x.

       -s | --sudo
              Run  lxc-*  commands through sudo; use this option if you run autopkgtest as normal user, but need
              to run the container itself as root (if you use LXC system level containers).

        --name NAME
              Set a custom name for the temporary container in which to run the test. This is  autogenerated  by
              default  (autopkgtest-lxc-XXXXXX),  but if you have a way to generate more expressive unique names
              you can use that to make it easier to map containers to running tests.

        --disk-limit SIZE
              Limits the amount of disk space that the test container is allowed to use for its root filesystem.
              When this option is used, then the test container will be backed by a loop  device  of  the  given
              SIZE,  and  it  won't  be  possible for the container to consume all of the disk space in the host
              machine.

       -d | --debug
              Enables debugging output.

       You  can  pass  additional  options  to  LXC:   Anything   after   a   --   gets   passed   verbatim   to
       lxc-start/lxc-start-ephemeral.

INPUT, OUTPUT AND EXIT STATUS

       The  behaviour  of  autopkgtest-virt-lxc  is  as  described by the AutomatedTesting virtualisation regime
       specification.

NOTES

       autopkgtest does not run apt-get update at the start of a package build, which can cause a build  failure
       if  you  are  using  a  development release template. You will need to run apt-get update in the template
       yourself (e. g. using --setup-commands).

EXAMPLE

       Create a suitable debootstrap-based container for Debian or Ubuntu template, e.   g.  a  Debian  sid  one
       (will be named autopkgtest-sid):

              autopkgtest-build-lxc debian sid

       Or  an  Ubuntu  one based on the cloud images (faster than autopkgtest-build-lxc's "ubuntu" template with
       debootstrap, but much bigger):

              lxc-create -t ubuntu-cloud -n autopkgtest-trusty -- -r trusty -d daily

       Run tests against hello_2.8-4.dsc, using the LXC container autopkgtest-sid, and with an ephemeral overlay
       for speed:

              autopkgtest hello_2.8-4.dsc -- lxc -e autopkgtest-sid

SEE ALSO

       autopkgtest(1), autopkgtest-build-lxc(1), lxc-create(1), /usr/share/doc/autopkgtest/.

AUTHORS AND COPYRIGHT

       autopkgtest-virt-lxc  was  written  by  Robie   Basak   <robie.basak@canonical.com>   and   Martin   Pitt
       <martin.pitt@ubuntu.com>.

       This manpage is part of autopkgtest, a tool for testing Debian binary packages.  autopkgtest is Copyright
       (C) 2006-2013 Canonical Ltd and others.

       See /usr/share/doc/autopkgtest/CREDITS for the list of contributors and full copying conditions.

Linux Programmer's Manual                             2013                               autopkgtest-virt-lxc(1)