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Add a LXD VM provider

View original Github issue

Metadata

Project
craft-providers
Number
#895
Type
issue
State
open
Author
lengau
Labels
Type: Enhancement
Created
Updated
Closed
—

Current evaluation

Add a VM-backed LXD provider for Imagecraft loop-device support; the requested capability remains open and is absent from the current provider tree.

Suggested action: needs triage

Reason: This is a valid, maintainer-authored enhancement with a concrete purpose: mirror the LXD provider using virtual machines so Imagecraft can add loop devices. It has no maintainer comments, assignee, acceptance criteria, or linked implementation plan, and the current tree still exposes only LXDProvider with no VM instance-type support.

Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot

Impact: 66 Quick Win: 13 Complexity: 66 Confidence: 88 Actionability: 58

Issue body

### What needs to get done This should be a provider that works the same as the current LXD provider but creates virtual machines rather than containers. ### Why it needs to get done Imagecraft needs to be able to add loop devices, which are currently not possible with LXD containers: https://github.com/canonical/lxd/issues/16070 LXD virtual machines are easier to manage on a Linux system than Multipass VMs.

Evaluation history

Date Model Scores Action Summary
stealth/space-bunny-alpha
Impact: 66
Quick Win: 13
Complexity: 66
Confidence: 88
Actionability: 58
needs triage Add a VM-backed LXD provider for Imagecraft loop-device support; the requested capability remains open and is absent from the current provider tree.
stealth/space-bunny-alpha
Impact: 58
Quick Win: 10
Complexity: 70
Confidence: 78
Actionability: 55
keep open Maintainer enhancement to add a provider mirroring LXD but launching VMs, to unblock Imagecraft loop devices (upstream lxd#16070). No VM provider exists in the current tree; still open, no design discussion.
stealth/space-bunny-alpha
Impact: 58
Quick Win: 25
Complexity: 44
Confidence: 88
Actionability: 77
keep open Add an LXD VM provider mirroring the container provider to support Imagecraft loop devices; still open, with no LXD VM provider implementation visible in the current tree.
qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6
Impact: 60
Quick Win: 27
Staleness: 65
Complexity: 55
Confidence: 65
Support Request: 10
needs triage Enhancement request to add a LXD VM provider that creates virtual machines instead of containers, enabling loop device support for Imagecraft. No discussion in 136 days.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Staleness: 60
Complexity: 50
Confidence: 85
Support Request: 10
needs triage Feature request to add an LXD VM provider for Imagecraft, enabling loop device support and simplifying VM management. Currently untriaged with no maintainer comments after 91 days of inactivity.
qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6
Staleness: 70
Complexity: 55
Confidence: 90
Support Request: 5
needs triage Enhancement request to add an LXD VM provider for virtual machine support, enabling loop device usage. Currently untriaged with no maintainer comments or activity in 81 days.

Update history

No update history recorded yet.

Related work

  • Related To: lxd#16070 (confidence 95%)

    The issue cites this LXD limitation as the reason containers cannot provide the required loop-device support.

  • Related To: craft-providers#903 (confidence 86%)

    The merged VM-instance listing work is adjacent infrastructure, but does not implement a VM-backed LXD provider.

Related issues

Issue Project State Summary Similarity
#253 Support the LXD provider imagecraft open Feature request to add an LXD provider to imagecraft for parity with other crafts. Triaged and actively discussed; plan shifted to an LXD VM provider after FUSE/ublk/nbd workarounds were ruled out.
79%