📖 Monitor Your First LXD Container

Learn how to use cella's monitoring panels to observe a container's resource usage in real time.

Prerequisites

• cella installed and running (see first 5 minutes tutorial)
• At least one running LXD container

Step 1: Open the Dashboard

Launch cella. The default view is the Dashboard. Select a running container with ↑/↓.

On the right pane you'll see:

• CPU sparkline — rolling 60-second CPU% history
• Memory bar — current / max with percentage
• Network — RX/TX bytes per second

Step 2: Resources Panel

Press r to open the Resources panel.

• Per-CPU bars — if the container is pinned to specific CPUs, each core shows separately
• Memory limit — live-editable: press Enter on the memory field, type a new value (e.g., 512M), and press Enter to apply
• CPU limit — similarly editable

Step 3: Network Panel

Press Esc to go back, then w for the Network panel.

• Real-time RX/TX rates
• Listening ports inside the container
• Active connections (TCP established)

Step 4: Live Logs

Press Esc, then l for the Logs panel.

• Streams journalctl -f output for LXD containers (or docker logs -f for Docker)
• Use / to search within the log stream
• Press Esc to return

Step 5: Events

Press V to see the LXD Events panel — all lifecycle events (start, stop, snapshot, etc.) in real time from the LXD event stream.

What's Next?

• Set up HTTPS interception
• Generate a seccomp profile from live traffic