Running Docker (OCI) Images in Incus

Incus 6.15 released with a lot of cool features, my favorite so far is the authentication support for OCI registries.

Here's an example:

$ incus remote add docker https://docker.io --protocol=oci
$ incus launch docker:debian:sid sid
$ incus shell sid
root@sid:~# apt update && apt upgrade -y
root@sid:~# cat /etc/os-release 
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_CODENAME=forky
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

This has been really useful for creating containers to test packages, much better than launching the official Debian stable Incus images and then manually changing the sources list.

Written on 2025-08-11.