I just tried Systemd.container. The process seemed to work well, and I can log to the container with $ machinectl --shell root@mycontainer but machinectl can't clone the image $ machinectl clone mycontainer testclone Could not clone image: Operation not supported I can export and import the image: $ machinectl export-tar mycontainer /var/tmp/testclone.tar.gz $ machinectl import-tar /var/tmp/testclone.tar.gz test-container list-images gives does not give the same information for both images: $ machinectl list-images NAME TYPE RO USAGE CREATED MODIFIED mycontainer directory no n/a n/a n/a testclone subvolume no 60M Thu 2015-09-24 22:41:39 CEST n/a but I can clone my newly imported image: $ machinectl clone testclone testclone2 $ machinectl list-images NAME TYPE RO USAGE CREATED MODIFIED mycontainer directory no n/a n/a n/a testclone subvolume no 60M Thu 2015-09-24 22:41:39 CEST n/a testclone2 subvolume no 60M Thu 2015-09-24 22:48:39 CEST n/a I guess "machinectl clone" does a little more than just copying the images...