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Install a Gentoo nspawn Container on Ubuntu 17.04 on Digital Ocean.
Spin up an Ubuntu 17.04 droplet, because nspawn containers are slightly more difficult with Ubuntu 16.04. Install systemd-container.
apt install systemd-container
After installing systemd-container you will discover a new directory, /var/lib/machines, and you can create a directory there for a new container. You'll need a systemd stage3 tarball for gentoo and you can get those from the Gentoo Website
After checking the hash you can extract it to your new folder
cd /var/lib/machines/gentoocontainer/
tar xvjpf /path/to/stage3-*.tar.bz2 --xattrs --numeric-owner
cd ../
Start the container so you can create a root password
systemd-nspawn -D gentoocontainer
passwd
logout
Because of how Digital Ocean sets up networking, if you want to subnet the container, start systemd-network (systemd-resolved is probably already running). And optionally it's also pretty straightforward to create a /usr/portage directory on the host operating system, and then bind that directory to the container.
# start the container and login as root
systemd-nspawn -b -D gentoocontainer
# to subnet the container
# start systemd-networkd on host
# and add -n flag
systemctl start systemd-networkd
systemd-nspawn -b -D gentoocontainer -n
# to bind /usr/portage
# create /usr/portage on host
mkdir /usr/portage
# and add the --bind option
systemd-nspawn -b -D gentoocontainer -n --bind=/usr/portage
You should have a root command line on the container, and there really are only two further things to consider: the container probably inherits timezone from the host, but not locale. And your MAKEOPTS="-j", some things seem to not compile if your MAKEOPTS j number is more than the number of cores on the host.
Your systemd-nspawn command will open up one root console, but if you use a multi-plexer like byobu you can run additional sessions with machinectl commands
# also works with new users in the container which you might create
machinectl shell root@gentoocontainer
# and then to get the whole environment call bash
bash
# to power down the container
poweroff