Install vzpkg2 and pkg-cacher

Introduction

Robert Nelson has created a couple new utilities to make managing and updating templates and containers easier, vzpkg2 pkg-cacher. So far they will create and update a large range of containers, including both 32bit and 64bit of the following:

• Centos 4 and 5,
• Fedora 7, 8 and 9,
• Debian Sarge and Etch,
• Ubuntu Feisty, Gutsy and Hardy.

Pkg-cacher is a transparent caching proxy daemon optimized for Debian and RPM packages. It is based on apt-cacher, available with Debian. This version has been modified to understand RedHat RPM repositories. It also adds support for the HTTP Range header and deals correctly with files which have the same name but different content on different distributions or in some cases different versions of the same distribution.

Robert has setup an RPM repository for Fedora and CentOS installs, but when this document was written there were no repositories for Ubuntu or Debian setup yet.

The source for the new vzpkg2 and templates is available on http://git.opensource-sw.net. In order to clone the updated source use the command:

git clone http://git.opensource-sw.net/git/vzpkg  

The templates are available using:

git clone http://git.opensource-sw.net/git/vztmpl

Installation

Remove Old Packages & Templates

• Backup your existing /vz/template directory and clear it out.
• Uninstall vzpkg and any vztmpl-* packages.

Centos & Fedora installs:

Remove Old Packages

If this is an existing install, uninstall your vzpkg and vztmpl-* packages:

yum remove vzpkg vztmpl-*

and backup & remove your current template directory:

tar cjf /some/backup/location/old_templates.tbz /vz/template
rm -r /vz/template

If this is a new install, you should probably review the OpenVZ User's Guide and the wiki's Quick installation page. The only way you would vary your installation setups is declining to install the default vzpkg package, and instead using vzpkg2 here.

Download the repository file for your OS

For CentOS:

   wget http://repo.opensource-sw.net/ossw_centos.repo -P /etc/yum.repos.d

For Fedora:

   wget http://repo.opensource-sw.net/ossw_fedora.repo -P /etc/yum.repos.d

You may wish to edit the repository file, perhaps to add a priorities setting.

Install vzpkg2 and pkg-cacher

Once the repository is added in /etc/yum.repos.d, you can now install the new vzpkg2 and pkg-cacher from it:

yum install vzpkg2 vztmpl2-centos vztmpl2-fedora vztmpl2-debian vztmpl2-ubuntu
yum install pkg-cacher

Open /etc/vz/vzpkg.conf in an editor. Replace 'hostname' with the hostname or IP of the machine you are installing this on for VZPKG_CACHE_HOST, make sure not to use 'localhost', because this name is what OpenVZ Containers will use to access the pkg-cacher daemon:

VZPKG_CACHE_HOST=hostname:3142

While you are here, review this file to ensure it makes sense for your setup. In particular, you will probably have to update the VZPKG_DNS line with IP addresses of DNS servers you use.

VZPKG_DNS=192.168.1.2,192.168.1.3