How to build lxc/incus on AlpineLinux (musl)

The document was written to build Incus v0.5.1. You may need a different how-to if you want to build higher versions of Incus.

Incus v0.5.1 (via Git)
AlpineLinux 3.18 x86_64
Canonical LXD-UI (Via Git)

This how-to document will help you to build Incus for AlpineLinux. Original references are:

TODO:

Figure out how to run this as a daemon user instead of manually from the CLI...
Figure out how the SystemD services work on the Incus Debian packages and use this as a reference for creating Alpine OpenRC services
...figure out how to package this properly :) go easy it's my first time outside of debian

Install dev dependencies from package manager

alpine-sdk includes common dependencies for building programs such as git. You may remove unused dependencies or install required dependencies manually. I haven't checked what's required explicitly.

apk add alpine-sdk xz acl-dev autoconf automake eudev-dev gettext-dev go intltool libcap-dev libtool libuv-dev linux-headers lz4-dev tcl-dev sqlite-dev lxc-dev

Incus replaced some Canonical tools with community fork. For example, cowsql is a community fork of dqlite.

Referenced: https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/infra/aports/-/blob/master/community/lxd/APKBUILD

Install runtime dependencies from package manager

You'll also need following dependencies for incusd to run correctly:

apk add rsync squashfs-tools iptables ip6tables acl attr ca-certificates cgmanager dbus dnsmasq iproute2 netcat-openbsd shadow-uidmap tar lxc libintl xz

Storage driver dependencies

apk add lvm2 thin-provisioning-tools

# activate dm-mod module
modprobe dm-mod
echo dm-mod >> /etc/modules-load.d/dm.conf

Download and checkout release

git clone https://github.com/lxc/incus
cd incus
git checkout v0.5.1

Build Incus

Build dependencies

# cc1: error: /usr/local/include: No such file or directory [-Werror=missing-include-dirs]
mkdir -p /usr/local/include

make deps

You'll see some environment variable definitions after make deps completes. Paste the export commands into your console.

Build Incus

Now you can build Incus.

# gettext.cgo2.c:(.text+0x2b9): undefined reference to `libintl_gettext'
# - module path: https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/contents?file=libintl*&path=&name=gettext-dev&branch=edge
# - related issue: https://github.com/gosexy/gettext/issues/1
export CGO_LDFLAGS="$CGO_LDFLAGS -L/usr/lib -lintl"
export CGO_CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/include"

make

Install Incus

I copied some commands to keep v0.5.1 installation docs here. If you're installing higher versions of Incus, please check the original documentation.

Setup environment variables

You can put following lines to console, or add them in /etc/profile.d/99incus.sh for global environment setup.

export PATH="${PATH}:$(go env GOPATH)/bin"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$(go env GOPATH)/deps/cowsql/.libs/:$(go env GOPATH)/deps/raft/.libs/:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}"

Setup unprivileged containers

echo "root:1000000:1000000000" | sudo tee -a /etc/subuid /etc/subgid

Disable QEMU (Optional!)

Maybe you are running Incus on a potato. In my case I run it on extremely low-end atom hardware, after all, I just wanted containers. In such a case, and without installing QEMU dependencies, you will receive the following error at startup:

WARNING[2024-02-06T21:17:04Z] Instance type not operational driver=qemu err="KVM support is missing (no /dev/kvm)" type=virtual-machine

To resolve:

vim internal/server/instance/drivers/load.go

Find lines 24-28:

// Instance driver definitions.
var instanceDrivers = map[string]func() instance.Instance{
	"lxc":  func() instance.Instance { return &lxc{} },
	"qemu": func() instance.Instance { return &qemu{} },
}

Comment 26 and 27 as follows:

// Instance driver definitions.
var instanceDrivers = map[string]func() instance.Instance{
	"lxc":  func() instance.Instance { return &lxc{} }//,
//	"qemu": func() instance.Instance { return &qemu{} },
}

Start daemon

sudo -E PATH=${PATH} LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${LD_LIBRARY_PATH} $(go env GOPATH)/bin/incusd --group wheel

Initial config

incus admin init

Installing Canonical's LXD-UI (Optional) Install deps for the UI

sudo apk add yarn npm

Build the UI

cd ~
git clone [email protected]:canonical/lxd-ui.git
cd lxd-ui

yarn && yarn build
cp -R build/ui /opt/incus/
ls /opt/incus/ui/
**assets** index.html
export INCUS_UI=/opt/incus/ui

Now restart incusd. Ensure the environment variable is set when you do so.

I didn't de-brand it. If that's of importance to you, look at these:

https://github.com/zabbly/incus/blob/daily/patches/ui-canonical-0001-Branding.patch
https://github.com/zabbly/incus/blob/daily/patches/ui-canonical-0002-Update-navigation.patch
https://github.com/zabbly/incus/blob/daily/patches/ui-canonical-0003-Update-certificate-generation.patch
https://github.com/zabbly/incus/blob/daily/patches/ui-canonical-0004-Remove-external-links.patch
https://github.com/zabbly/incus/blob/daily/patches/ui-canonical-0005-Remove-Canonical-image-servers.patch

a-a/alpine-incus.md