Installation on Debian/old

OpenVZ consists of a kernel, user-level tools, and VE templates.

This guide tells how to install the kernel and the tools on Debian Stable.

Requirements

Filesystems

It is recommended to use a separate partition for VEs private directories (by default /var/lib/vz/private/<veid>). The reason why you should do so is that if you wish to use OpenVZ per-VE disk quota, you won't be able to use usual Linux disk quotas on the same partition. Bear in mind, that per-VE quota in this context includes not only pure per-VE quota, but also usual Linux disk quota used in VE, not on HN.

At least try to avoid using root partition for VEs, because the root user of VE will be able to overcome 5% disk space barrier in some situations. This way HN root partition can be completely filled and it will break the system.

OpenVZ per-VE disk quota is supported only for ext2/ext3 filesystems. So use one of these filesystems (ext3 is recommended) if you need per-VE disk quota.

Repository setup

At the moment two different repositories are online at http://download.openvz.org  :

Ola Lundqvist <opal@debian.org> "OpenVZ Kernels only" --> apt-uri http://download.openvz.org/debian 

Thorsten Schiffedecker <tsd@debian.systs.org> --> apt-uri http://download.openvz.org/debian-systs (Mirror of OpenVZ Repository from http://debian.systs.org)

Note: The next steps used the Repository at http://download.openvz.org/debian-systs, the actually OpenVZ Tools for Debian are exist only in unstable see http://packages.debian.org/vzctl

Note: per default on ubuntu system, root task are done with sudo

This can be achieved by the following commands, as root or as privileged "sudo" user

# [sudo] echo "deb http://download.openvz.org/debian-systs etch openvz" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
# wget http://download.openvz.org/debian-systs/dso_archiv_signing_key.asc
# [sudo] apt-key add dso_archiv_signing_key.asc
# [sudo] apt-get update

Kernel installation

Note: In case you want to recompile the OpenVZ kernel yourself on Debian, see Compiling the OpenVZ Kernel (the debian way).

First, you need to choose what kernel you want to install.

OpenVZ Kernel list built with kernel config from openvz.org

kernel	Description	Hardware	Debian Architektur
ovzkernel-2.6.18	uniprocessor	up to 4GB of RAM	i386 and amd64
ovzkernel-2.6.18-smp	symmetric multiprocessor	up to 4 GB of RAM	i386 and amd64
ovzkernel-2.6.18-enterprise	SMP + PAE support + 4/4GB split	up to 64 GB of RAM	i386 only

OpenVZ Kernel list built with official Debian Kernel Config and OpenVZ Settings

kernel	Description	Hardware	Debian Architektur
fzakernel-2.6.18-686	uni- and multiprocessor	up to 4GB of RAM	i386
fzakernel-2.6.18-686-bigmem	symmetric multiprocessor	up to 64 GB of RAM	i386
fzakernel-2.6.18-amd64	uni- and multiprocessor		amd64

 # apt-get install <kernel>

Configuring the bootloader

In case GRUB is used as the boot loader, it will be configured automatically: lines similar to these will be added to the /boot/grub/menu.lst file:

[...]
  title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-ovz-028stab051.1-686
  root            (hd0,1)
  kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.18-ovz-028stab051.1-686 root=/dev/sda5 ro vga=791
  initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.18-ovz-028stab051.1-686
  savedefault
[...]

Note: per default on debian/ubuntu, a 2.6.22 kernel will boot before a 2.6.18, please check manually the grub boot order. See man update-grub for more details

Rebooting into OpenVZ kernel

Warning: Before you restart your Server, keep in mind, that your system has all needed modules enabled; booting from your harddisk (e.g. hardware modules, raid system(s), lvm2 etc). May you need a INITRD (initramdisk) or compile needed kernel modules statically in.

Now reboot the machine and choose the OpenVZ Linux Kernel on the boot loader menu. If the OpenVZ kernel has been booted successfully, proceed to installing the user-level tools for OpenVZ.

Installing the user-level tools

OpenVZ needs some user-level tools installed. Those are:

vzctl

A utility to control OpenVZ VPSs (create, destroy, start, stop, set parameters etc.)

vzquota

A utility to manage quotas for VPSs. Mostly used indirectly (by vzctl).

 # [sudo] apt-get install vzctl vzquota

Configuring

sysctl

There are a number of kernel parameters that should be set for OpenVZ to work correctly. These parameters are stored in /etc/sysctl.conf file. Here is the relevant part of the file; please edit it accordingly.

Note: vzctl version from debian-systs, automate changing sysctl options for openvz

[...]

# On Hardware Node we generally need
# packet forwarding enabled and proxy arp disabled

net.ipv4.conf.default.forwarding=1
net.ipv4.conf.default.proxy_arp = 0

# Enables source route verification
net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter = 1

# Enables the magic-sysrq key
kernel.sysrq = 1

# TCP Explict Congestion Notification
#net.ipv4.tcp_ecn = 0

# we do not want all our interfaces to send redirects
net.ipv4.conf.default.send_redirects = 1
net.ipv4.conf.all.send_redirects = 0

[...]

Note: You can make a symlink from /var/lib/vz to /vz as backward compability to Main OpenVZ (Debian vz root directory is installed FHS-like to /var/lib/vz

 # [sudo] ln -s /var/lib/vz /vz 

VE OS Templates

To install a VE, you need VE OS Template(s), precreated can be found here or create it : Debian , ubuntu and all infos about Templates

Note: Setup your prefered standard OS Template : edit the /etc/vz/vz.conf

 # [sudo] apt-get install vzctl-ostmpl-debian

Additial user tools

vzprocps

A set of utilities to provide system information (vzps and vztop)

vzdump

A utility to backup and restore VE.

 # [sudo] apt-get install vzprocps vzdump

Use it!

After installing the OpenVZ kernel, user tools and a Minimal VE OS Template create a first VE and do some Basic operations in OpenVZ environment and read the doc/OpenVZ-Users-Guide.pdf and browse this wiki.