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Working example.

We present step-by-step instructions for setting up a testing environment using the Incus script.

This script is prepared to work on a Debian system. (It may work on other apt based systems.) It can be run on a bare-metal installation or on a virtual machine. (If running a VM, be sure to enable nested virtualization.)

In this example, we will use Debian 13.3.0 installed from an ISO. We used this image: https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-13.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso

This guide was last tested on 17th February 2026.

Warning:

Incus script uses these networks internally, and they may conflict with your host:

  • 192.168.100.0/24
  • 192.168.50.0/24
  • 192.168.51.0/24
  • 2001:db0::0/32

Installing OS and Incus.

1. Install Debian.

Install Debian from ISO.

  • Select SSH Server if you need to connect remotely.
  • GUI is not required.
  • Set up a mirror server for the package repository.

2. Install prerequisites.

Debian does not come preinstalled with some packages required by the incus script. We need to install:

  • sudo
  • git
  • python3

To install packages, we need to switch the user to root by entering the command and then the root password when asked:

su -

Now we update the repository and install packages:

apt-get update
apt-get install sudo git python3

3. Configure sudo.

We need to make sudo commands run without a password, so the script can execute commands without asking for a password.

visudo

Add a line at the end, replacing <username> with your username.

%<username> ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Now you won’t be asked for a password when using sudo.

Exit superuser so we can proceed using sudo:

exit

4. Clone Forge from the Git Repository.

Return to the home directory.

cd ~

You can use git clone to download Forge from the repository.

git clone https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/forge.git

5. Install Incus using the script.

Enter the Forge directory and run the install script:

cd forge
sudo ./incus_install.sh

Preparing containers.

1. Prepare testing environment.

Incus script allows preparing various OSes for testing. We will start with Ubuntu 24.04 with 2 kea containers and 2 networks:

sudo ./incus.sh prepare-env ubuntu/24.04 2 2 master

We should now have 3 containers: kea-forge, kea-1, and kea-2 connected by two internal networks.

2. Installing Kea.

Incus script supports installing Kea from a tarball or packages.

2A. Installing Kea from tarball.

Kea can be obtained from the git repository or extracted from a tarball.

To download the latest master to the home directory:

git clone https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea.git ~/kea

You can also download a premium tarball into the kea directory.

Install Kea on the containers:

sudo ./incus.sh install-kea-tarball 2 ~/kea

2B. Installing Kea from packages.

This method supports only our internal repository (not publicly available)

Example command:

sudo ./incus.sh install-kea-pkgs ubuntu/24.04 2 2.7.3-isc20240903092214

Running tests.

1. Running pytest.

Running a full set of tests requires additional RADIUS and Windows installations.

More useful would be running a specific file:

sudo ./incus.sh run-pytest tests/dhcp/protocol/test_v6_basic.py

Or even a specific test:

sudo ./incus.sh run-pytest tests/dhcp/protocol/test_v6_basic.py::test_v6_basic_message_request_reply

2. Updating test files.

When you modify Forge files on the host machine, you can upload them to the Forge container using:

sudo ./incus.sh update-pytest

Or adding --upload-pytest option to run-pytest. For example:

sudo ./incus.sh run-pytest tests/dhcp/protocol/test_v6_basic.py --upload-pytest

3. Updating Kea.

There is no automatic way of reinstalling Kea at this time. You need to delete containers and rebuild them.

To remove containers and networks, run:

sudo ./incus.sh clear-all 2 2

You can also log in to containers and update Kea manually. To log in to the first container run:

sudo incus exec kea-1 -- bash

Additional settings.

You can change logFile="/dev/null" line in incus.sh to log to file.