I have been running a handful of Debian systems in containers since OpenVZ was state-of-the art. As the hardware expired, I moved to linux-vserver, then LXC, then LXD ... at which point it all shifted from straightforward text configuration files to SQLite mediated by CLI programs. When I could not figure out the incantation required for some gnarly configuration rotations ("computer says no"), I was forced to shut everything down, alter the SQLite files directly, and spin it all back up again. On the next hardware refresh, I switched back to LXC.

This sort of mediation makes sense and works great for ephemeral containers in Kubernetes. For full virtual servers, LXD is the worst of both worlds.