Why LXD + OpenVox + LinuxAid?

If you manage Linux infrastructure, you know the pain of keeping configurations consistent across machines. LXD gives you lightweight system containers — full OS environments without the overhead of VMs. OpenVox is an open-source configuration management agent (a fork of Puppet), and LinuxAid is a platform that makes managing OpenVox agents straightforward.

This guide walks you through the full setup: installing LXD on Ubuntu 24.04, launching a container, installing the OpenVox agent inside it, and connecting it to LinuxAid.

Prerequisites

  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) host
  • A user with sudo access
  • A LinuxAid account (for the configuration management part)

Step 1: Install and Initialize LXD

On Ubuntu 24.04, LXD is available as a snap. If you have the older lxd deb package installed, remove it first.

Install LXD

sudo snap install lxd

If LXD is already installed via snap, make sure it’s up to date:

sudo snap refresh lxd

Add Your User to the LXD Group

sudo usermod -aG lxd $USER
newgrp lxd

Initialize LXD

Run the interactive setup. For most use cases, the defaults work fine:

lxd init

You’ll be asked about storage backends, networking, and clustering. For a simple single-host setup:

  • Clustering: no
  • Storage backend: dir (simplest) or zfs (better performance)
  • MAAS server: no
  • Network bridge: yes (accept default lxdbr0)
  • NAT: yes
  • IPv6: you can skip this unless you need it

A minimal non-interactive setup:

lxd init --minimal

Verify the installation:

lxc list

You should see an empty table — no containers yet.

Step 2: Launch an LXD Container

Let’s create an Ubuntu 24.04 container:

lxc launch ubuntu:24.04 openvox-node

This downloads the Ubuntu 24.04 image (if not cached) and starts a container named openvox-node.

Check it’s running:

lxc list

+---------------+---------+----------------------+------+-----------+-----------+
|     NAME      |  STATE  |         IPV4         | IPV6 |   TYPE    | SNAPSHOTS |
+---------------+---------+----------------------+------+-----------+-----------+
| openvox-node  | RUNNING | 10.x.x.x (eth0)     |      | CONTAINER |     0     |
+---------------+---------+----------------------+------+-----------+-----------+

Get a shell inside the container:

lxc exec openvox-node -- bash

From here on, commands are run inside the container unless stated otherwise.

Step 3: Install the OpenVox Agent

Inside the container, install the OpenVox agent. First, add the OpenVox repository.

Add the OpenVox Repository

apt-get update
apt-get install -y curl gnupg

curl -fsSL https://apt.openvox.io/openvox-keyring.gpg \
  | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/openvox-keyring.gpg

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/openvox-keyring.gpg] https://apt.openvox.io noble main" \
  | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openvox.list

Install the Agent

apt-get update
apt-get install -y openvox-agent

Verify the Installation

/opt/openvox/bin/openvox agent --version

You should see the installed version printed.

Step 4: Configure the OpenVox Agent for LinuxAid

LinuxAid acts as your OpenVox server — it manages the certificates and provides the catalog (the desired configuration) for your nodes.

Set the LinuxAid Server

Edit the OpenVox agent configuration:

cat > /etc/openvox/openvox.conf <<EOF
[agent]
server = your-linuxaid-server.linuxaid.com
certname = openvox-node
EOF

Replace your-linuxaid-server.linuxaid.com with the server hostname provided in your LinuxAid dashboard.

Start the Agent

Enable and start the OpenVox agent service:

systemctl enable openvox-agent
systemctl start openvox-agent

Sign the Certificate

When the agent first connects to LinuxAid, it submits a certificate signing request (CSR). You need to approve this in the LinuxAid dashboard:

  1. Log in to LinuxAid
  2. Navigate to Nodes → Unsigned Certificates
  3. Find openvox-node and click Sign

Once signed, the agent will start receiving its catalog on the next run.

Test the Connection

Trigger a manual agent run to verify everything works:

/opt/openvox/bin/openvox agent --test

You should see the agent connect to LinuxAid, receive its catalog, and apply any configurations. If you see Applied catalog in X.XX seconds, you’re all set.

Step 5: Managing Your Node from LinuxAid

With the agent connected, you can now manage your container from the LinuxAid dashboard:

  • View facts — hardware, OS, network info reported by the agent
  • Apply configurations — push changes to your node
  • Monitor compliance — see if the node’s actual state matches the desired state
  • Group nodes — organize nodes by role, environment, or any criteria you define

Useful LXD Commands

Back on the host, here are some commands you’ll use regularly:

# Stop the container
lxc stop openvox-node

# Start it again
lxc start openvox-node

# Delete the container (must be stopped first)
lxc delete openvox-node

# Copy a container (for testing)
lxc copy openvox-node openvox-node-test

# Take a snapshot
lxc snapshot openvox-node clean-state

# Restore from snapshot
lxc restore openvox-node clean-state

# View container resource usage
lxc info openvox-node

Troubleshooting

Agent Can’t Resolve the Server Hostname

Make sure DNS works inside the container:

lxc exec openvox-node -- dig your-linuxaid-server.linuxaid.com

If DNS isn’t resolving, check the LXD network bridge settings or add the server to /etc/hosts inside the container.

Certificate Not Appearing in LinuxAid

Check the agent logs:

lxc exec openvox-node -- journalctl -u openvox-agent -f

Common issues:

  • Wrong server hostname in openvox.conf
  • Firewall blocking port 8140 (OpenVox uses this by default)
  • Clock skew between the container and the server (certificates are time-sensitive)

Container Networking Issues

If the container can’t reach the internet:

# On the host, check the bridge
lxc network show lxdbr0

# Verify NAT is enabled
lxc network set lxdbr0 ipv4.nat true

Wrapping Up

You now have a working setup: an LXD container running the OpenVox agent, connected to LinuxAid for configuration management. From here, you can:

  • Launch more containers and connect them all to LinuxAid
  • Write OpenVox manifests to automate your infrastructure
  • Use LXD snapshots to test configuration changes before applying them to production

LXD containers are cheap to create and destroy, which makes them perfect for testing configuration management workflows. Spin up a container, test your changes, tear it down, repeat.

If you spot any errors or have suggestions, hit the “Suggest Changes” link above. Find me on GitHub or LinkedIn.