Incus 7.0 LTS has been released as the second long-term support release of the Linux Containers project’s container and virtual machine manager, providing maintenance through June 2031 and succeeding version 6.0 LTS, which now enters its final three years of security-only support.
As a major release, Incus 7.0 LTS updates several baseline requirements. Minimum supported versions now include Linux kernel 6.12, Go 1.25, QEMU 8.2, LXC 6.0, nftables 1.0, and dnsmasq 2.90. Optional components also have updated minimums, such as Open vSwitch 2.15, OVN 23.03, ZFS 2.1, and LVM 2.03.11, depending on the features used.
Legacy support is being phased out. CGroup v1 and xtables-based firewall handling via iptables, ip6tables, and ebtables are now deprecated. The Incus command-line tool has also been improved for more consistent command behavior. Plus, the release addresses 9 security issues: 7 are rated moderate, and 2 are rated low.
A key backend change is the replacement of MinIO as the storage bucket provider. Incus now features a built-in S3 listener, eliminating the external dependency. Existing storage buckets are converted to the new Incus format upon first access, while the API remains S3-compatible.
Incus 7.0 LTS also introduces a new server shutdown action for clustered environments. The core.shutdown_action option can be set to evacuate, enabling a server to move as many instances as possible to other servers during shutdown rather than shutting them down locally.
Backup handling for virtual machines is improved as well, with Incus now providing a low-level NBD API and APIs for creating dirty bitmaps for change tracking.
For users upgrading from Incus 6.0 LTS, version 7.0 LTS includes several features introduced during the 6.x cycle that were not backported due to significant database or on-disk changes.
This includes OCI image support, first introduced in Incus 6.3. With this feature, Incus can create application containers directly from OCI images while applying standard container configuration options, such as resource limits and system call interception.
Storage management has several enhancements. Dependent storage volumes can now be directly associated with an instance, allowing them to follow the instance through snapshots, migration, backups, and deletion.
Incus 7.0 LTS also adds support for LINSTOR as a remote storage option using DRBD-based replication, and introduces a TrueNAS storage driver for using a remote TrueNAS system as a storage pool via the TrueNAS API and iSCSI.
Networking improvements include network address sets, which simplify ACL configuration by enabling the reuse of IPv4 and IPv6 address groups that administrators can reference directly in network ACLs.
Moreover, clustered deployments now support CPU baseline definitions in cluster groups, which enables Incus to calculate or define common CPU features across mixed hardware.
For more details, visit the release announcement or check out the full changelog.
Incus 7.0 LTS is released alongside LXC 7.0 LTS and LXCFS 7.0 LTS, completing this round of long-term support releases for Linux Containers. Users are encouraged to try out these new features by visiting the Incus online platform, which provides a hands-on experience with the latest version.
