`utils/lxc.sh`¶

With the use of Linux Containers (LXC) we can scale our tasks over a stack of containers, what we call the: lxc suite. The SearXNG suite config is loaded by default, every time you start the lxc.sh script (you do not need to care about).

Install LXD ¶

Before you can start with containers, you need to install and initiate LXD once:

$ snap install lxd
$ lxd init --auto

To make use of the containers from the SearXNG suite, you have to build the LXC suite containers initial. But be warned, this might take some time:

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh build

A cup of coffee later, your LXC suite is build up and you can run whatever task you want / in a selected or even in all LXC suite containers.

Internet Connectivity & Docker ¶

There is a conflict in the iptables setup of Docker & LXC. If you have docker installed, you may find that the internet connectivity of your LXD containers no longer work.

Whenever docker is started (reboot) it sets the iptables policy for the FORWARD chain to DROP [ref]:

$ sudo -H iptables-save | grep FORWARD
:FORWARD ACCEPT [7048:7851230]
:FORWARD DROP [7048:7851230]

A handy solution of this problem might be to reset the policy for the FORWARD chain after the network has been initialized. For this create a file in the if-up section of the network (/etc/network/if-up.d/iptable) and insert the following lines:

#!/bin/sh
iptables -F FORWARD
iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT

Don’t forget to set the execution bit:

sudo chmod ugo+x /etc/network/if-up.d/iptable

Reboot your system and check the iptables rules:

$ sudo -H iptables-save | grep FORWARD
:FORWARD ACCEPT [7048:7851230]
:FORWARD ACCEPT [7048:7851230]

SearXNG LXC suite ¶

The intention of the SearXNG LXC suite is to build up a suite of containers for development tasks or buildhosts with a very small set of simple commands. At the end of the --help output the SearXNG suite from the SearXNG suite config is introduced:

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh --help
...
LXC suite: searxng
  Suite includes installation of SearXNG
  images:     ubu2004 ubu2204 fedora35 archlinux
  containers: searxng-ubu2004 searxng-ubu2204 searxng-fedora35 searxng-archlinux

As shown above there are images and containers build up on this images. To show more info about the containers in the SearXNG LXC suite call show suite. If this is the first time you make use of the SearXNG LXC suite, no containers are installed and the output is:

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh show suite

LXC suite (searxng-*)
=====================

+------+-------+------+------+------+-----------+
| NAME | STATE | IPV4 | IPV6 | TYPE | SNAPSHOTS |
+------+-------+------+------+------+-----------+

WARN:  container searxng-ubu2004 does not yet exists
WARN:  container searxng-ubu2204 does not yet exists
WARN:  container searxng-fedora35 does not yet exists
WARN:  container searxng-archlinux does not yet exists

If you do not want to run a command or a build in all containers, you can build just one. Here by example in the container that is build upon the archlinux image:

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh build searxng-archlinux
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux pwd

Otherwise, to apply a command to all containers you can use:

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh build
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd -- ls -la .

Running commands ¶

Inside containers, you can run scripts from the DevOps tooling box or run what ever command you need. By example, to start a bash use:

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux bash
INFO:  [searxng-archlinux] bash
[root@searxng-archlinux SearXNG]#

Good to know ¶

Each container shares the root folder of the repository and the command utils/lxc.sh cmd handle relative path names transparent:

$ pwd
/share/SearXNG

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux pwd
INFO:  [searxng-archlinux] pwd
/share/SearXNG

The path /share/SearXNG will be different on your HOST system. The commands in the conatiner are executed by the root inside of the container. Compare output of:

$ ls -li Makefile
47712402 -rw-rw-r-- 1 markus markus 2923 Apr 19 13:52 Makefile

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux ls -li Makefile
INFO:  [searxng-archlinux] ls -li Makefile
47712402 -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 2923 Apr 19 11:52 Makefile
...

Since the path /share/SearXNG of the HOST system is wrapped into the container under the same name, the shown Makefile (inode 47712402) in the ouput is always the identical /share/SearXNG/Makefile from the HOST system. In the example shown above the owner of the path in the container is the root user of the conatiner (and the timezone in the container is different to HOST system).

Install suite ¶

To install the complete SearXNG suite into all LXC containers leave the container argument empty and run:

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh build
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh install suite

To build & install suite only in one container you can use by example:

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh build searxng-archlinux
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh install suite searxng-archlinux

The command above installs a SearXNG suite (see Installation Script). To install a nginx reverse proxy (or alternatively use apache):

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd -- FORCE_TIMEOUT=0 ./utils/searxng.sh install nginx

Same operation just in one container of the suite:

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux FORCE_TIMEOUT=0 ./utils/searxng.sh install nginx

The FORCE_TIMEOUT environment is set to zero to run the script without user interaction.

To get the IP (URL) of the SearXNG service in the containers use show suite command. To test instances from containers just open the URLs in your WEB-Browser:

$ sudo ./utils/lxc.sh show suite | grep SEARXNG_URL

[searxng-ubu2110]      SEARXNG_URL          : http://n.n.n.170/searxng
[searxng-ubu2004]      SEARXNG_URL          : http://n.n.n.160/searxng
[searxnggfedora35]     SEARXNG_URL          : http://n.n.n.150/searxng
[searxng-archlinux]    SEARXNG_URL          : http://n.n.n.140/searxng

Clean up ¶

If there comes the time you want to get rid off all the containers and clean up local images just type:

$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh remove
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh remove images

Setup SearXNG buildhost ¶

You can install the SearXNG buildhost environment into one or all containers. The installation procedure to set up a build host takes its time. Installation in all containers will take more time (time for another cup of coffee).

sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd -- ./utils/searxng.sh install buildhost

To build (live) documentation inside a archlinux container:

sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux make docs.clean docs.live
...
[I 200331 15:00:42 server:296] Serving on http://0.0.0.0:8080

To get IP of the container and the port number live docs is listening:

$ sudo ./utils/lxc.sh show suite | grep docs.live
...
[searxng-archlinux]  INFO:  (eth0) docs.live:  http://n.n.n.140:8080/

Command Help ¶

The --help output of the script is largely self-explanatory:

usage::
  lxc.sh build        [containers|<name>]
  lxc.sh copy         [images]
  lxc.sh remove       [containers|<name>|images]
  lxc.sh [start|stop] [containers|<name>]
  lxc.sh show         [images|suite|info|config [<name>]]
  lxc.sh cmd          [--|<name>] '...'
  lxc.sh install      [suite|base [<name>]]

build
  :containers:   build, launch all containers and 'install base' packages
  :<name>:       build, launch container <name>  and 'install base' packages
copy:
  :images:       copy remote images of the suite into local storage
remove
  :containers:   delete all 'containers' or only <container-name>
  :images:       delete local images of the suite
start/stop
  :containers:   start/stop all 'containers' from the suite
  :<name>:       start/stop container <name> from suite
show
  :info:         show info of all (or <name>) containers from LXC suite
  :config:       show config of all (or <name>) containers from the LXC suite
  :suite:        show services of all (or <name>) containers from the LXC suite
  :images:       show information of local images
cmd
  use single quotes to evaluate in container's bash, e.g.: 'echo $(hostname)'
  --             run command '...' in all containers of the LXC suite
  :<name>:       run command '...' in container <name>
install
  :base:         prepare LXC; install basic packages
  :suite:        install LXC searxng suite into all (or <name>) containers

LXC suite: searxng
  Suite includes installation of SearXNG
  images:     ubu2004 ubu2204 fedora35 archlinux
  containers: searxng-ubu2004 searxng-ubu2204 searxng-fedora35 searxng-archlinux

SearXNG suite config ¶

The SearXNG suite is defined in the file git://utils/lxc-searxng.env:

# -*- coding: utf-8; mode: sh indent-tabs-mode: nil -*-
# SPDX-License-Identifier: AGPL-3.0-or-later
# shellcheck shell=bash

# This file is a setup of a LXC suite.  It is sourced from different context, do
# not manipulate the environment directly, implement functions and manipulate
# environment only in subshells.

lxc_set_suite_env() {

    export LXC_SUITE_NAME="searxng"

    # name of https://images.linuxcontainers.org
    export LINUXCONTAINERS_ORG_NAME="${LINUXCONTAINERS_ORG_NAME:-images}"
    export LXC_HOST_PREFIX="${LXC_SUITE_NAME:-searx}"
    export LXC_SUITE=(

        # end of standard support see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
        "$LINUXCONTAINERS_ORG_NAME:ubuntu/20.04"  "ubu2004" # LTS EOSS April 2025
        "$LINUXCONTAINERS_ORG_NAME:ubuntu/22.04"  "ubu2204" # LTS EOSS April 2027

        # EOL see https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases
        "$LINUXCONTAINERS_ORG_NAME:fedora/35"     "fedora35"

        # rolling releases see https://www.archlinux.org/releng/releases/
        "$LINUXCONTAINERS_ORG_NAME:archlinux"     "archlinux"
    )
}

lxc_suite_install_info() {
    (
        lxc_set_suite_env
        cat <<EOF
LXC suite: ${LXC_SUITE_NAME}
  Suite includes installation of SearXNG
  images:     ${LOCAL_IMAGES[*]}
  containers: ${CONTAINERS[*]}
EOF
    )
}

lxc_suite_install() {
    (
        lxc_set_suite_env
        FORCE_TIMEOUT=0 "${LXC_REPO_ROOT}/utils/searxng.sh" install all
        rst_title "Suite installation finished ($(hostname))" part
        if ask_yn "Developer install? (wraps source from HOST into the running instance)" Yn; then
            "${LXC_REPO_ROOT}/utils/searxng.sh" searxng.install.link_src "$(pwd)"
        fi
        lxc_suite_info
        echo
    )
}

lxc_suite_info() {
    (
        lxc_set_suite_env
        for ip in $(global_IPs) ; do
            if [[ $ip =~ .*:.* ]]; then
                info_msg "(${ip%|*}) IPv6:       http://[${ip#*|}]"
            else
                # IPv4:
                # shellcheck disable=SC2034,SC2031
                info_msg "(${ip%|*}) docs-live:  http://${ip#*|}:8080/"
            fi
        done
        "${LXC_REPO_ROOT}/utils/searxng.sh" searxng.instance.env
    )
}

`utils/lxc.sh`¶

Install LXD ¶

Internet Connectivity & Docker ¶

SearXNG LXC suite ¶

Running commands ¶

Good to know ¶

Install suite ¶

Clean up ¶

Setup SearXNG buildhost ¶

Command Help ¶

SearXNG suite config ¶

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utils/lxc.sh¶

`utils/lxc.sh`¶