# LXD

> This is the documentation for LXD, a system container and virtual machine manager.


2014-2026 AGPL-3.0, LXD contributors

## Pages in this subsection

- [Explanation](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/index.html.md): An index of explanatory guides for LXD, covering instances, images, storage, networking, access management, clustering, production setup, and the CSI driver.
- [`lxd` and `lxc`](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/lxd_lxc/index.html.md): Explanation of the differences between LXD and LXC, the role of the LXD daemon, and the difference between the lxd and lxc commands.
- [Containers and VMs](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/instances/index.html.md): Explanation and comparison of the two LXD instance types, system containers and virtual machines, and how they differ from application containers.
- [Storage pools, volumes, and buckets](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/storage/index.html.md): Explanation of LXD storage pools, storage volumes, and storage buckets, including volume types, content types, and the default storage pool.
- [Networking setups](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/networks/index.html.md): Explanation of LXD networking, including network devices (NICs), managed networks, and recommendations on choosing a network type.
- [`lxc` `show` and `info`](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/lxc_show_info/index.html.md): Explanation of the lxc show and lxc info sub-commands, which display configuration and current state information for entities managed by LXD.
- [Remote API authorization](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/authorization/index.html.md): Explanation of LXD remote API authorization, including restricted TLS certificates and fine-grained authorization with permissions, identities, and groups.
- [Instances grouping with projects](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/projects/index.html.md): Explanation of how LXD projects group related instances, isolate or share other resources, and confine users on a multi-user server.
- [Clusters](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/clusters/index.html.md): Explanation of LXD clusters, including member roles, cluster groups, cluster links, automatic instance placement, and high availability.
- [Disaster recovery](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/disaster_recovery/index.html.md): Explanation of LXD approaches to active-passive disaster recovery, including replicators, storage replication, monitoring, and the lxd recover tool.
- [Performance tuning](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/performance_tuning/index.html.md): Explanation of LXD performance tuning for production, including benchmarks, instance metrics, and tuning server settings and network bandwidth.
- [Security](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/security/index.html.md): Explanation of LXD security, including daemon access, container and network security, audit logging, cryptography, and vulnerability reporting.
- [Privilege delegation using BPF Token](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/bpf/index.html.md): Explanation of privilege delegation using BPF Token, which lets LXD delegate specific BPF functionality to unprivileged containers.
- [The LXD CSI driver](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/csi/index.html.md): Explanation of the LXD CSI driver, which lets Kubernetes provision and manage storage volumes using LXD storage backends.
- [Instance configuration](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/explanation/instance_config/index.html.md): The instance configuration consists of different categories:

## Optional

- [Top-level llms.txt](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/latest/llms.txt): Complete documentation index.