LXC BASH

Bash Completions, Aliases and Functions for working with LXC (not LXD, just plain LXC)

Installation

Source the completion file in your .bashrc:

source /path/to/lxc-bash-completion.bash

Commands

Command	Description
lxc-ls	List all containers with full info
lxc-start <name>	Start a stopped container
lxc-stop <name>	Stop a running container
lxc-shutdown <name>	Gracefully shutdown via poweroff
lxc-attach <name> [user]	Attach to container (auto-starts if stopped)
lxc-info <name>	Show container info
lxc-ip <name>	Get container IP address
lxc-freeze <name>	Freeze a running container
lxc-unfreeze <name>	Unfreeze a frozen container
lxc-start-debug <name> [logfile]	Debug container startup failures

All commands support tab completion for container names.

Debugging Container Startup Failures

When a container fails to start, lxc-start automatically offers to run debug mode (interactive terminals only). You can also run it directly:

lxc-start-debug mycontainer

This will:

1. Run pre-flight checks (bridge, IPv6 config, config/rootfs)
2. Offer to restart services (e.g., lxc-net) with failure diagnosis
3. Attempt foreground start to capture detailed errors
4. Analyze output and suggest fixes
5. Offer to retry after fixes

Common issues detected:

• Missing bridge (lxcbr0) - offers to restart lxc-net
• IPv6 disabled - detects when system has IPv6 disabled but lxc-net expects it
• Permission denied - checks for AppArmor/SELinux issues
• Network/cgroup problems - with specific fix suggestions

Optionally save debug output to a file:

lxc-start-debug mycontainer /tmp/debug.log