+This is great because containers do not waste CPU power nor memory due
+to kernel emulation. Container run-time costs are close to zero and
+usually negligible. But there are also some drawbacks you need to
+consider:
+
+* You can only run Linux based OS inside containers, i.e. it is not
+ possible to run FreeBSD or MS Windows inside.
+
+* For security reasons, access to host resources needs to be
+ restricted. This is done with AppArmor, SecComp filters and other
+ kernel features. Be prepared that some syscalls are not allowed
+ inside containers.
+
+{pve} uses https://linuxcontainers.org/[LXC] as underlying container
+technology. We consider LXC as low-level library, which provides
+countless options. It would be too difficult to use those tools
+directly. Instead, we provide a small wrapper called `pct`, the
+"Proxmox Container Toolkit".
+
+The toolkit is tightly coupled with {pve}. That means that it is aware
+of the cluster setup, and it can use the same network and storage
+resources as fully virtualized VMs. You can even use the {pve}
+firewall, or manage containers using the HA framework.
+
+Our primary goal is to offer an environment as one would get from a
+VM, but without the additional overhead. We call this "System
+Containers".
+
+NOTE: If you want to run micro-containers (with docker, rkt, ...), it
+is best to run them inside a VM.
+
+
+Technology Overview
+-------------------
+
+* LXC (https://linuxcontainers.org/)
+
+* Integrated into {pve} graphical user interface (GUI)
+
+* Easy to use command line tool `pct`
+
+* Access via {pve} REST API
+
+* lxcfs to provide containerized /proc file system
+
+* AppArmor/Seccomp to improve security
+
+* CRIU: for live migration (planned)
+
+* Use latest available kernels (4.4.X)
+
+* Image based deployment (templates)
+
+* Use {pve} storage library
+
+* Container setup from host (network, DNS, storage, ...)
+
+
+Security Considerations
+-----------------------
+
+Containers use the same kernel as the host, so there is a big attack
+surface for malicious users. You should consider this fact if you
+provide containers to totally untrusted people. In general, fully
+virtualized VMs provide better isolation.
+
+The good news is that LXC uses many kernel security features like
+AppArmor, CGroups and PID and user namespaces, which makes containers
+usage quite secure.
+
+Guest Operating System Configuration
+------------------------------------
+
+We normally try to detect the operating system type inside the
+container, and then modify some files inside the container to make
+them work as expected. Here is a short list of things we do at
+container startup:
+
+set /etc/hostname:: to set the container name
+
+modify /etc/hosts:: to allow lookup of the local hostname
+
+network setup:: pass the complete network setup to the container
+
+configure DNS:: pass information about DNS servers
+
+adapt the init system:: for example, fix the number of spawned getty processes
+
+set the root password:: when creating a new container
+
+rewrite ssh_host_keys:: so that each container has unique keys
+
+randomize crontab:: so that cron does not start at the same time on all containers
+
+Changes made by {PVE} are enclosed by comment markers:
+
+----
+# --- BEGIN PVE ---
+<data>
+# --- END PVE ---
+----
+
+Those markers will be inserted at a reasonable location in the
+file. If such a section already exists, it will be updated in place
+and will not be moved.
+
+Modification of a file can be prevented by adding a `.pve-ignore.`
+file for it. For instance, if the file `/etc/.pve-ignore.hosts`
+exists then the `/etc/hosts` file will not be touched. This can be a
+simple empty file created via:
+
+ # touch /etc/.pve-ignore.hosts
+
+Most modifications are OS dependent, so they differ between different
+distributions and versions. You can completely disable modifications
+by manually setting the `ostype` to `unmanaged`.
+
+OS type detection is done by testing for certain files inside the
+container:
+
+Ubuntu:: inspect /etc/lsb-release (`DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu`)
+
+Debian:: test /etc/debian_version
+
+Fedora:: test /etc/fedora-release
+
+RedHat or CentOS:: test /etc/redhat-release
+
+ArchLinux:: test /etc/arch-release
+
+Alpine:: test /etc/alpine-release
+
+Gentoo:: test /etc/gentoo-release
+
+NOTE: Container start fails if the configured `ostype` differs from the auto
+detected type.
+
+
+[[pct_container_images]]
+Container Images
+----------------
+
+Container images, sometimes also referred to as ``templates'' or
+``appliances'', are `tar` archives which contain everything to run a
+container. You can think of it as a tidy container backup. Like most
+modern container toolkits, `pct` uses those images when you create a
+new container, for example:
+
+ pct create 999 local:vztmpl/debian-8.0-standard_8.0-1_amd64.tar.gz
+
+{pve} itself ships a set of basic templates for most common
+operating systems, and you can download them using the `pveam` (short
+for {pve} Appliance Manager) command line utility. You can also
+download https://www.turnkeylinux.org/[TurnKey Linux] containers using
+that tool (or the graphical user interface).
+
+Our image repositories contain a list of available images, and there
+is a cron job run each day to download that list. You can trigger that
+update manually with:
+
+ pveam update
+
+After that you can view the list of available images using:
+
+ pveam available
+
+You can restrict this large list by specifying the `section` you are
+interested in, for example basic `system` images:
+
+.List available system images
+----
+# pveam available --section system
+system archlinux-base_2015-24-29-1_x86_64.tar.gz
+system centos-7-default_20160205_amd64.tar.xz
+system debian-6.0-standard_6.0-7_amd64.tar.gz
+system debian-7.0-standard_7.0-3_amd64.tar.gz
+system debian-8.0-standard_8.0-1_amd64.tar.gz
+system ubuntu-12.04-standard_12.04-1_amd64.tar.gz
+system ubuntu-14.04-standard_14.04-1_amd64.tar.gz
+system ubuntu-15.04-standard_15.04-1_amd64.tar.gz
+system ubuntu-15.10-standard_15.10-1_amd64.tar.gz
+----
+
+Before you can use such a template, you need to download them into one
+of your storages. You can simply use storage `local` for that
+purpose. For clustered installations, it is preferred to use a shared
+storage so that all nodes can access those images.
+
+ pveam download local debian-8.0-standard_8.0-1_amd64.tar.gz
+
+You are now ready to create containers using that image, and you can
+list all downloaded images on storage `local` with:
+
+----
+# pveam list local
+local:vztmpl/debian-8.0-standard_8.0-1_amd64.tar.gz 190.20MB
+----
+
+The above command shows you the full {pve} volume identifiers. They include
+the storage name, and most other {pve} commands can use them. For
+example you can delete that image later with:
+
+ pveam remove local:vztmpl/debian-8.0-standard_8.0-1_amd64.tar.gz
+
+
+[[pct_container_storage]]
+Container Storage
+-----------------
+
+Traditional containers use a very simple storage model, only allowing
+a single mount point, the root file system. This was further
+restricted to specific file system types like `ext4` and `nfs`.
+Additional mounts are often done by user provided scripts. This turned
+out to be complex and error prone, so we try to avoid that now.
+
+Our new LXC based container model is more flexible regarding
+storage. First, you can have more than a single mount point. This
+allows you to choose a suitable storage for each application. For
+example, you can use a relatively slow (and thus cheap) storage for
+the container root file system. Then you can use a second mount point
+to mount a very fast, distributed storage for your database
+application. See section <<pct_mount_points,Mount Points>> for further
+details.
+
+The second big improvement is that you can use any storage type
+supported by the {pve} storage library. That means that you can store
+your containers on local `lvmthin` or `zfs`, shared `iSCSI` storage,
+or even on distributed storage systems like `ceph`. It also enables us
+to use advanced storage features like snapshots and clones. `vzdump`
+can also use the snapshot feature to provide consistent container
+backups.
+
+Last but not least, you can also mount local devices directly, or
+mount local directories using bind mounts. That way you can access
+local storage inside containers with zero overhead. Such bind mounts
+also provide an easy way to share data between different containers.
+
+
+FUSE Mounts
+~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+WARNING: Because of existing issues in the Linux kernel's freezer
+subsystem the usage of FUSE mounts inside a container is strongly
+advised against, as containers need to be frozen for suspend or
+snapshot mode backups.
+
+If FUSE mounts cannot be replaced by other mounting mechanisms or storage
+technologies, it is possible to establish the FUSE mount on the Proxmox host
+and use a bind mount point to make it accessible inside the container.
+
+
+Using Quotas Inside Containers
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Quotas allow to set limits inside a container for the amount of disk
+space that each user can use. This only works on ext4 image based
+storage types and currently does not work with unprivileged
+containers.
+
+Activating the `quota` option causes the following mount options to be
+used for a mount point:
+`usrjquota=aquota.user,grpjquota=aquota.group,jqfmt=vfsv0`
+
+This allows quotas to be used like you would on any other system. You
+can initialize the `/aquota.user` and `/aquota.group` files by running
+
+----
+quotacheck -cmug /
+quotaon /
+----
+
+and edit the quotas via the `edquota` command. Refer to the documentation
+of the distribution running inside the container for details.
+
+NOTE: You need to run the above commands for every mount point by passing
+the mount point's path instead of just `/`.
+
+
+Using ACLs Inside Containers
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The standard Posix **A**ccess **C**ontrol **L**ists are also available inside containers.
+ACLs allow you to set more detailed file ownership than the traditional user/
+group/others model.
+
+
+Backup of Containers mount points
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+By default additional mount points besides the Root Disk mount point are not
+included in backups. You can reverse this default behavior by setting the
+*Backup* option on a mount point.
+// see PVE::VZDump::LXC::prepare()
+
+Replication of Containers mount points
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+By default additional mount points are replicated when the Root Disk
+is replicated. If you want the {pve} storage replication mechanism to skip a
+ mount point when starting a replication job, you can set the
+*Skip replication* option on that mount point. +
+As of {pve} 5.0, replication requires a storage of type `zfspool`, so adding a
+ mount point to a different type of storage when the container has replication
+ configured requires to *Skip replication* for that mount point.
+
+
+[[pct_settings]]
+Container Settings
+------------------
+
+[[pct_general]]
+General Settings
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+[thumbnail="screenshot/gui-create-ct-general.png"]
+
+General settings of a container include
+
+* the *Node* : the physical server on which the container will run
+* the *CT ID*: a unique number in this {pve} installation used to identify your container
+* *Hostname*: the hostname of the container
+* *Resource Pool*: a logical group of containers and VMs
+* *Password*: the root password of the container
+* *SSH Public Key*: a public key for connecting to the root account over SSH
+* *Unprivileged container*: this option allows to choose at creation time
+if you want to create a privileged or unprivileged container.
+
+
+Privileged Containers
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Security is done by dropping capabilities, using mandatory access
+control (AppArmor), SecComp filters and namespaces. The LXC team
+considers this kind of container as unsafe, and they will not consider
+new container escape exploits to be security issues worthy of a CVE
+and quick fix. So you should use this kind of containers only inside a
+trusted environment, or when no untrusted task is running as root in
+the container.
+
+
+Unprivileged Containers
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+This kind of containers use a new kernel feature called user
+namespaces. The root UID 0 inside the container is mapped to an
+unprivileged user outside the container. This means that most security
+issues (container escape, resource abuse, ...) in those containers
+will affect a random unprivileged user, and so would be a generic
+kernel security bug rather than an LXC issue. The LXC team thinks
+unprivileged containers are safe by design.
+
+NOTE: If the container uses systemd as an init system, please be
+aware the systemd version running inside the container should be equal
+or greater than 220.
+
+[[pct_cpu]]
+CPU
+~~~
+
+[thumbnail="screenshot/gui-create-ct-cpu.png"]
+
+You can restrict the number of visible CPUs inside the container using
+the `cores` option. This is implemented using the Linux 'cpuset'
+cgroup (**c**ontrol *group*). A special task inside `pvestatd` tries
+to distribute running containers among available CPUs. You can view
+the assigned CPUs using the following command:
+
+----
+# pct cpusets
+ ---------------------
+ 102: 6 7
+ 105: 2 3 4 5
+ 108: 0 1
+ ---------------------
+----
+
+Containers use the host kernel directly, so all task inside a
+container are handled by the host CPU scheduler. {pve} uses the Linux
+'CFS' (**C**ompletely **F**air **S**cheduler) scheduler by default,
+which has additional bandwidth control options.
+
+[horizontal]
+
+`cpulimit`: :: You can use this option to further limit assigned CPU
+time. Please note that this is a floating point number, so it is
+perfectly valid to assign two cores to a container, but restrict
+overall CPU consumption to half a core.
++
+----
+cores: 2
+cpulimit: 0.5
+----
+
+`cpuunits`: :: This is a relative weight passed to the kernel
+scheduler. The larger the number is, the more CPU time this container
+gets. Number is relative to the weights of all the other running
+containers. The default is 1024. You can use this setting to
+prioritize some containers.
+
+
+[[pct_memory]]
+Memory
+~~~~~~
+
+[thumbnail="screenshot/gui-create-ct-memory.png"]
+
+Container memory is controlled using the cgroup memory controller.
+
+[horizontal]
+
+`memory`: :: Limit overall memory usage. This corresponds
+to the `memory.limit_in_bytes` cgroup setting.
+
+`swap`: :: Allows the container to use additional swap memory from the
+host swap space. This corresponds to the `memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes`
+cgroup setting, which is set to the sum of both value (`memory +
+swap`).
+
+
+[[pct_mount_points]]
+Mount Points
+~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+[thumbnail="screenshot/gui-create-ct-root-disk.png"]
+
+The root mount point is configured with the `rootfs` property, and you can
+configure up to 10 additional mount points. The corresponding options
+are called `mp0` to `mp9`, and they can contain the following setting:
+
+include::pct-mountpoint-opts.adoc[]
+
+Currently there are basically three types of mount points: storage backed
+mount points, bind mounts and device mounts.
+
+.Typical container `rootfs` configuration
+----
+rootfs: thin1:base-100-disk-1,size=8G
+----
+
+
+Storage Backed Mount Points
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Storage backed mount points are managed by the {pve} storage subsystem and come
+in three different flavors:
+
+- Image based: these are raw images containing a single ext4 formatted file
+ system.
+- ZFS subvolumes: these are technically bind mounts, but with managed storage,
+ and thus allow resizing and snapshotting.
+- Directories: passing `size=0` triggers a special case where instead of a raw
+ image a directory is created.
+
+NOTE: The special option syntax `STORAGE_ID:SIZE_IN_GB` for storage backed
+mount point volumes will automatically allocate a volume of the specified size
+on the specified storage. E.g., calling
+`pct set 100 -mp0 thin1:10,mp=/path/in/container` will allocate a 10GB volume
+on the storage `thin1` and replace the volume ID place holder `10` with the
+allocated volume ID.
+
+
+Bind Mount Points
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Bind mounts allow you to access arbitrary directories from your Proxmox VE host
+inside a container. Some potential use cases are:
+
+- Accessing your home directory in the guest
+- Accessing an USB device directory in the guest
+- Accessing an NFS mount from the host in the guest
+
+Bind mounts are considered to not be managed by the storage subsystem, so you
+cannot make snapshots or deal with quotas from inside the container. With
+unprivileged containers you might run into permission problems caused by the
+user mapping and cannot use ACLs.
+
+NOTE: The contents of bind mount points are not backed up when using `vzdump`.
+
+WARNING: For security reasons, bind mounts should only be established
+using source directories especially reserved for this purpose, e.g., a
+directory hierarchy under `/mnt/bindmounts`. Never bind mount system
+directories like `/`, `/var` or `/etc` into a container - this poses a
+great security risk.
+
+NOTE: The bind mount source path must not contain any symlinks.
+
+For example, to make the directory `/mnt/bindmounts/shared` accessible in the
+container with ID `100` under the path `/shared`, use a configuration line like
+`mp0: /mnt/bindmounts/shared,mp=/shared` in `/etc/pve/lxc/100.conf`.
+Alternatively, use `pct set 100 -mp0 /mnt/bindmounts/shared,mp=/shared` to
+achieve the same result.
+
+
+Device Mount Points
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Device mount points allow to mount block devices of the host directly into the
+container. Similar to bind mounts, device mounts are not managed by {PVE}'s
+storage subsystem, but the `quota` and `acl` options will be honored.
+
+NOTE: Device mount points should only be used under special circumstances. In
+most cases a storage backed mount point offers the same performance and a lot
+more features.
+
+NOTE: The contents of device mount points are not backed up when using `vzdump`.
+
+
+[[pct_container_network]]
+Network
+~~~~~~~
+
+[thumbnail="screenshot/gui-create-ct-network.png"]
+
+You can configure up to 10 network interfaces for a single
+container. The corresponding options are called `net0` to `net9`, and
+they can contain the following setting:
+
+include::pct-network-opts.adoc[]
+
+
+[[pct_startup_and_shutdown]]
+Automatic Start and Shutdown of Containers
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+After creating your containers, you probably want them to start automatically
+when the host system boots. For this you need to select the option 'Start at
+boot' from the 'Options' Tab of your container in the web interface, or set it with
+the following command:
+
+ pct set <ctid> -onboot 1
+
+.Start and Shutdown Order
+// use the screenshot from qemu - its the same
+[thumbnail="screenshot/gui-qemu-edit-start-order.png"]
+
+If you want to fine tune the boot order of your containers, you can use the following
+parameters :
+
+* *Start/Shutdown order*: Defines the start order priority. E.g. set it to 1 if
+you want the CT to be the first to be started. (We use the reverse startup
+order for shutdown, so a container with a start order of 1 would be the last to
+be shut down)
+* *Startup delay*: Defines the interval between this container start and subsequent
+containers starts . E.g. set it to 240 if you want to wait 240 seconds before starting
+other containers.
+* *Shutdown timeout*: Defines the duration in seconds {pve} should wait
+for the container to be offline after issuing a shutdown command.
+By default this value is set to 60, which means that {pve} will issue a
+shutdown request, wait 60s for the machine to be offline, and if after 60s
+the machine is still online will notify that the shutdown action failed.
+
+Please note that containers without a Start/Shutdown order parameter will always
+start after those where the parameter is set, and this parameter only
+makes sense between the machines running locally on a host, and not
+cluster-wide.
+
+Hookscripts
+~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+You can add a hook script to CTs with the config property `hookscript`.
+
+ pct set 100 -hookscript local:snippets/hookscript.pl
+
+It will be called during various phases of the guests lifetime.
+For an example and documentation see the example script under
+`/usr/share/pve-docs/examples/guest-example-hookscript.pl`.
+
+Backup and Restore