📦 LXC Management Cheat Sheet

A central wiki to store refresher pages for all my used technologies. The goal is to have a central knowledge base to easily reference the basics when returning to a project I haven't worked on in a while (and beat my ADHD executive dysfunction.

📦 LXC Management Cheat Sheet

🔧 Container Basics

# List all containers
pct list

# Show detailed info
pct config <CTID>
pct status <CTID>

▶️ Lifecycle

# Create container
pct create <CTID> <TEMPLATE> \
  -storage <STORAGE> -hostname <NAME> -memory <MB> \
  -net0 name=eth0,bridge=vmbr0,ip=dhcp

# Start / Stop / Reboot
pct start <CTID>
pct stop <CTID>
pct reboot <CTID>

# Shutdown gracefully
pct shutdown <CTID>

# Destroy container
pct destroy <CTID>

🔑 Access

# Attach to console (interactive shell as root)
pct enter <CTID>

# Run command inside container
pct exec <CTID> -- <command>

# Example: run apt update inside CT
pct exec <CTID> -- apt update

💾 Storage & Disks

# Resize root disk
pct resize <CTID> rootfs +10G

# Mount additional storage
pct set <CTID> -mp0 /host/path,mp=/container/path

# Check usage
pct df <CTID>

🌐 Networking

# Add network interface
pct set <CTID> -net0 name=eth0,bridge=vmbr0,ip=dhcp

# Assign static IP
pct set <CTID> -net0 name=eth0,bridge=vmbr0,ip=192.168.1.50/24,gw=192.168.1.1

# Limit bandwidth
pct set <CTID> -net0 rate=10

🔒 Permissions & Features

# Allow nested containers
pct set <CTID> -features nesting=1

# Allow fuse mounts
pct set <CTID> -features fuse=1

# Enable privileged container
pct set <CTID> -unprivileged 0

📦 Backups & Snapshots

# Backup container
vzdump <CTID> --storage <STORAGE> --mode snapshot

# Restore container
pct restore <NEW_CTID> /path/to/vzdump-lxc-<CTID>.tar.zst

# Snapshot
pct snapshot <CTID> <SNAPNAME>

# Rollback
pct rollback <CTID> <SNAPNAME>

🛠️ Useful Tricks

# Copy file into container
pct push <CTID> /local/file /remote/path

# Copy file from container
pct pull <CTID> /remote/file /local/path

# Temporary resource limit
pct set <CTID> -memory 2048 -cores 2

# Remove unused CT configs
ls /etc/pve/lxc/

⚡ Pro Tips

  • Use unprivileged containers whenever possible for security.
  • Store templates in local or local-lvm (pveam update to refresh list).
  • Combine with Proxmox storage pools (ZFS/CEPH) for snapshots/replication.
  • Use pct set liberally — it’s safe to adjust configs on the fly.