<a id="remote-image-servers"></a>

# Remote image servers

The [`lxc`](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/default/reference/manpages/lxc/index.html.md#lxc-md) CLI command comes pre-configured with the following default remote image servers:

`images:`
: This server provides unofficial images for a variety of Linux distributions.
  The images are built to be compact and minimal, and therefore the default image variants do not include `cloud-init`.
  Where possible, `/cloud` variants that include `cloud-init` are provided.
  See [`cloud-init` support in images](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/default/cloud-init/index.html.md#cloud-init-support).
  <br/>
  This server does not provide official Ubuntu images (for those, use the `ubuntu:` server).
  It does, however, provide desktop variants of current Ubuntu releases.
  <br/>
  See [`images.lxd.canonical.com`](https://images.lxd.canonical.com) for an overview of available images.

`ubuntu:`
: This server provides official stable Ubuntu images.
  All images are cloud images, which means that they include both `cloud-init` and the `lxd-agent`.
  <br/>
  See [`cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases`](https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/) for an overview of available images.

`ubuntu-daily:`
: This server provides official daily Ubuntu images.
  All images are cloud images, which means that they include both `cloud-init` and the `lxd-agent`.
  <br/>
  See [`cloud-images.ubuntu.com/daily`](https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/daily/) for an overview of available images.

`ubuntu-minimal:`
: This server provides official Ubuntu Minimal images.
  All images are cloud images, which means that they include both `cloud-init` and the `lxd-agent`.
  <br/>
  See [`cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases`](https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/) for an overview of available images.

`ubuntu-minimal-daily:`
: This server provides official daily Ubuntu Minimal images.
  All images are cloud images, which means that they include both `cloud-init` and the `lxd-agent`.
  <br/>
  See [`cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/daily`](https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/daily/) for an overview of available images.

<a id="remote-image-server-types"></a>

## Remote server types

LXD supports the following types of remote image servers:

Simple streams servers
: Pure image servers that use the [simple streams format](https://git.launchpad.net/simplestreams/tree/).
  The default image servers are simple streams servers.

Public LXD servers
: LXD servers that are used solely to serve images and do not run instances themselves.
  <br/>
  To make a LXD server publicly available over the network on port 8443, set the [`core.https_address`](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/default/server/index.html.md#server-core:core.https_address) configuration option to `:8443` and do not configure any authentication methods (see [How to expose LXD to the network](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/default/howto/server_expose/index.html.md#server-expose) for more information).
  Then set the images that you want to share to `public`.

LXD servers
: Regular LXD servers that you can manage over a network, and that can also be used as image servers.
  <br/>
  For security reasons, you should restrict the access to the remote API and configure an authentication method to control access.
  See [How to expose LXD to the network](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/default/howto/server_expose/index.html.md#server-expose) and [Remote API authentication](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/default/authentication/index.html.md#authentication) for more information.

## Related topics

How-to guides:

- [Images](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/default/images/index.html.md#images)

Explanation:

- [Local and remote images](https://canonical.com/lxd/docs/default/image-handling/index.html.md#about-images)