NAME

       lxc-autostart - start/stop/kill auto-started containers

SYNOPSIS

       lxc-autostart [-k] [-L] [-r] [-s] [-a] [-A] [-g groups] [-t timeout]

DESCRIPTION

       lxc-autostart  processes  containers  with  lxc.start.auto  set.  It lets the user start, shutdown, kill,
       restart containers in the right order, waiting the right time. Supports filtering by  lxc.group  or  just
       run  against  all  defined containers. It can also be used by external tools in list mode where no action
       will be performed and the list of affected containers (and if relevant, delays) will be shown.

       The [-r], [-s] and [-k] options specify the action to perform.  If none is specified, then the containers
       will be started.  [-a] and [-g] are used to specify which containers will be affected.  By  default  only
       containers  without  a lxc.group set will be affected.  [-t TIMEOUT] specifies the maximum amount of time
       to wait for the container to complete the shutdown or reboot.

OPTIONS

       -r,--reboot
              Request a reboot of the container.

       -s,--shutdown
              Request a clean shutdown. If a [-t timeout] greater than 0 is given and the container has not shut
              down within this period, it will be killed as with the [-k kill] option.

       -k,--kill
              Rather than requesting a clean shutdown of the container, explicitly kill all tasks  in  the  con‐
              tainer.

       -L,--list
              Rather  than  performing  the action, just print the container name and wait delays until starting
              the next container.

       -t,--timeout TIMEOUT
              Wait TIMEOUT seconds before hard-stopping the container.

       -g,--groups GROUP
              Comma separated list of groups to select (defaults to those without a lxc.group - the NULL group).
              This option may be specified multiple times and the arguments  concatenated.  The  NULL  or  empty
              group  may  be specified as a leading comma, trailing comma, embedded double comma, or empty argu‐
              ment where the NULL group should be processed.  Groups are processed in the order specified on the
              command line. Multiple invocations of the -g option may be freely intermixed with the comma  sepa‐
              rated lists and will be combined in specified order.

       -a,--all
              Ignore lxc.group and select all auto-started containers.

       -A,--ignore-auto
              Ignore the lxc.start.auto flag. Combined with -a, will select all containers on the system.

AUTOSTART AND SYSTEM BOOT

       The  lxc-autostart  command is used as part of the LXC system service, when enabled to run on host system
       at bootup and at shutdown. It's used to select which containers to start in what order and  how  much  to
       delay between each startup when the host system boots.

       Each  container  can  be part of any number of groups or no group at all.  Two groups are special. One is
       the NULL group, i.e. the container does not belong to any group. The other group is the "onboot" group.

       When the system boots with the LXC service enabled, it will first attempt to  boot  any  containers  with
       lxc.start.auto == 1 that is a member of the "onboot" group. The startup will be in order of lxc.start.or‐
       der.  If an lxc.start.delay has been specified, that delay will be honored before attempting to start the
       next container to give the current container time to begin initialization and reduce overloading the host
       system.  After starting the members of the "onboot" group, the LXC system will proceed to boot containers
       with lxc.start.auto == 1 which are not members of any group (the NULL group) and proceed as with the  on‐
       boot group.

STARTUP GROUP EXAMPLES

       -g "onboot,"
              Start the "onboot" group first then the NULL group.

              This is the equivalent of: -g onboot -g "".

       -g "dns,web,,onboot"
              Starts the "dns" group first, the "web" group second, then the NULL group followed by the "onboot"
              group.

              This is the equivalent of: -g dns,web -g ,onboot or -g dns -g web -g "" -g onboot.

SEE ALSO

       lxc(7),  lxc-create(1),  lxc-copy(1), lxc-destroy(1), lxc-start(1), lxc-stop(1), lxc-execute(1), lxc-con‐
       sole(1), lxc-monitor(1),  lxc-wait(1),  lxc-cgroup(1),  lxc-ls(1),  lxc-info(1),  lxc-freeze(1),  lxc-un‐
       freeze(1), lxc-attach(1), lxc.conf(5)

AUTHOR

       Stéphane Graber <stgraber@ubuntu.com>

                                                   2025-05-10                                   lxc-autostart(1)