Incus Commands Reference

Frequently used commands for managing containers and virtual machines

What is Incus?

Incus is a modern, powerful system container and virtual machine manager that enables you to run full Linux systems in isolated environments. As a community-driven fork of LXD, Incus provides a unified experience for managing both lightweight system containers and full virtual machines on a single host.

Whether you're building a private cloud infrastructure, creating isolated development environments, or spinning up quick debugging machines, Incus delivers enterprise-grade virtualization with remarkable simplicity. It's perfect for running production workloads, testing applications in clean environments, or experimenting with different operating systems without the overhead of traditional virtualization.

Nested Virtualization: VMs Inside VMs

One of Incus's most powerful features is its support for nested virtualization. This allows you to run virtual machines inside other virtual machines, opening up possibilities that were previously complex or impossible:

Testing hypervisor configurations: Develop and test virtualization setups without dedicated hardware
Multi-layer isolation: Create sophisticated sandbox environments with multiple levels of security boundaries
Cloud development: Build and test cloud-native infrastructure locally by simulating multi-node clusters within VMs
Training and education: Provide students with full virtualization stacks for learning without requiring bare metal access
CI/CD pipelines: Run automated tests that require VM capabilities inside ephemeral test environments

With nested virtualization, you can launch an Incus VM, install Incus inside it, and create additional containers or VMs within that nested environment—all with native performance characteristics.

Common Use Cases:

Private Cloud: Build your own infrastructure-as-a-service platform with containers and VMs managed through a single, consistent API
Development Environments: Instantly create isolated, reproducible environments that exactly match your production setup
Debugging & Testing: Spin up fresh systems in seconds to reproduce bugs, test patches, or validate configurations
CI/CD Infrastructure: Run build agents, test suites, and deployment targets in isolated, disposable environments
Learning & Experimentation: Safely explore new technologies, test dangerous commands, or learn system administration without risk to your host
Microservices & Kubernetes: Run complete Kubernetes clusters or isolated microservice stacks for development and testing

Incus combines the lightweight efficiency of containers with the strong isolation of virtual machines, giving you the flexibility to choose the right tool for each workload. Below you'll find a comprehensive reference of the most frequently used Incus commands to help you get started.

Container Management

Launch a container

incus launch images:ubuntu/22.04 container-name

Launch with specific image

incus launch images:debian/12 debian-container

Start a container

incus start container-name

Stop a container

incus stop container-name

Restart a container

incus restart container-name

Delete a container

incus delete container-name --force

Execute command in container

incus exec container-name -- command

Open shell in container

incus exec container-name -- bash

List all containers

incus list

Show container info

incus info container-name

Virtual Machine Management

Launch a VM

incus launch images:ubuntu/22.04 vm-name --vm

Start a VM

incus start vm-name

Stop a VM

incus stop vm-name

Access VM console

incus console vm-name

Launch VM with custom resources

incus launch images:ubuntu/22.04 vm-name --vm -c limits.cpu=4 -c limits.memory=4GB

File Operations

Copy file to container

incus file push /local/file container-name/path/to/destination

Copy file from container

incus file pull container-name/path/to/file /local/destination

Edit file in container

incus file edit container-name/path/to/file

Snapshots & Backups

Create snapshot

incus snapshot container-name snapshot-name

List snapshots

incus info container-name

Restore snapshot

incus restore container-name snapshot-name

Delete snapshot

incus delete container-name/snapshot-name

Export container

incus export container-name /path/to/backup.tar.gz

Import container

incus import /path/to/backup.tar.gz

Networking

List networks

incus network list

Show network details

incus network show incusbr0

Create network

incus network create mynetwork

Attach container to network

incus network attach mynetwork container-name eth0

Set static IP

incus config device set container-name eth0 ipv4.address=10.0.0.100

Configuration

Show container config

incus config show container-name

Set CPU limit

incus config set container-name limits.cpu=2

Set memory limit

incus config set container-name limits.memory=2GB

Set autostart

incus config set container-name boot.autostart=true

Edit full config

incus config edit container-name

Storage

List storage pools

incus storage list

Create storage pool

incus storage create pool-name dir source=/path/to/storage

Create storage volume

incus storage volume create pool-name volume-name

Attach volume to container

incus storage volume attach pool-name volume-name container-name /mount/path

Images

List available images

incus image list images:

Search for images

incus image list images: ubuntu

List local images

incus image list

Copy image locally

incus image copy images:ubuntu/22.04 local: --alias ubuntu22

Delete local image

incus image delete image-fingerprint

Profiles

List profiles

incus profile list

Show profile

incus profile show default

Create profile

incus profile create myprofile

Apply profile to container

incus profile add container-name myprofile

Edit profile

incus profile edit myprofile

Note: Replace container-name, vm-name, and other placeholders with your actual instance names. Use incus --help or incus command --help for more detailed information about any command.