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Blincus

Your first Blincus instance

Let’s Fire This Thing Up

You’ve installed incus, and you’ve installed Blincus. You did the quick tasks in the post incus install guide. Now we’re ready to take Blincus for a spin.

Blincus Launch

To start your first instance, use blincus launch.

The launch command expects the name of your instance as an argument. This will be the hostname, I tend to be specific to the purpose of the instance: fleekdev, wails, briandotdev. The instance name will be the only useful thing you have to help you remember why you created it; dancing-monkey isn’t going to cut it.

The launch command also requires a flag specifying the template you want to use. To see the starter templates that come with Blincus, run blincus template list.

> blincus template list
ubuntu:
Ubuntu Jammy + cloud
Image: images:ubuntu/jammy/cloud


ubuntux:
Ubuntu Jammy cloud + x
Image: images:ubuntu/jammy/cloud

Pick one to test and launch it.

Terminal window
> blincus launch myfirst -t ubuntu
Using ubuntu template
Using debian cloud-init profile
Starting instance myfirst
Mounting scripts from /home/bjk/.blincus/scripts
Waiting for cloud init...
/usr/bin/cloud-init
..........................................
status: done
Blincus ID: bc11b8e9445c4a169eafa63bd293b224
Mounting home directory at /home/bjk/host
Allowing X sharing:
access control disabled, clients can connect from any host
Instance myfirst ready
Run blincus shell myfirst to enter

Success! And the output gives you your next step: blincus shell myfirst:

Terminal window
> blincus shell myfirst
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.


 * Blincus instance: myfirst
 * Template: ubuntu
 * Image: images:ubuntu/jammy/cloud
 * Host Mounts: Host <-> Instance
   - /home/bjk/.config/blincus/scripts/ubuntu <-> /opt/scripts
   - /home/bjk <-> /home/bjk/host/


bjk@myfirst:~$

Blincus automatically sets the MOTD (message of the day) in your shell with some helpful information about the instance’s configuration.

You’re in a shell inside your running instance. To prove it to yourself, try running

Terminal window
> cat /etc/os-release

The output should match the template you specified in the launch command.

Terminal window
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION_ID="22.04"
VERSION="22.04.3 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)"
VERSION_CODENAME=jammy
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"
UBUNTU_CODENAME=jammy

That’s pretty cool, since I’m running on a Fedora-based Bluefin computer.