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. In other terms, pkg-cacher is a service that runs on a machine that other machines and containers, or "clients", use to update themselves instead of each of them directly hitting the package repositories. Pkg-cacher only downloads a file once and then gives that to all its clients, instead of each of the clients downloading the file from the Internet at large. 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 repositories for Fedora, CentOS and Debian.

Screencast

Scott Dowdle has recorded a good screencast overview of vzpkg2 and pkg-cacher at:

http://www.montanalinux.org/vzpkg2-screencast.html

Installation

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/centos/ossw.repo -P /etc/yum.repos.d

For Fedora:

   wget http://repo.opensource-sw.net/fedora/ossw.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-sa

Configure vzpkg2

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

Configure pkg-cacher

Edit /etc/pkg-cacher/pkg-cacher.conf. You should read the included documentation in the file to ensure it is appropriate for your setup. Mostly the defaults will work just fine. By default pkg-cacher will let any system use its cache. You will probably want to limit it to your own systems on the line:

allowed_hosts=*

Once you have checked and updated pkg-cacher.conf, simply restart it by running as root:

service pkg-cacher restart

Generate the new template cache

Now everything should be ready to go! Make sure both the 'vz' service and 'pkg-cacher' service are running, then run as root:

vzpkgcache

vzpkg2 should get to work generating your initial caches. Now you can run 'vzctl create' and use them.

Debian Installs:

Remove Old Packages

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

apt-get erase vzpkg vzctl-ostmpl-*

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 Installation on Debian page. The only way you would vary your installation setups is declining to install the default vzpkg package, and instead using vzpkg2 here.

Add the deb repositories to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

Add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

Etch:

   deb http://repo.opensource-sw.net/debian/ etch openvz
   deb-src http://repo.opensource-sw.net/debian/ etch openvz

Sarge:

   deb http://repo.opensource-sw.net/debian/ sarge openvz
   deb-src http://repo.opensource-sw.net/debian/ sarge openvz

Then do:

   apt-get update
   apt-get install pkg-cacher-sa vzpkg2

Adding New Templates:

Install the desired OS Template Metadata packages:

   apt-get install vztmpl2-centos vztmpl2-fedora vztmpl2-ubuntu vztmpl2-debian

Configure vzpkg2

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

Configure pkg-cacher

Edit /etc/pkg-cacher/pkg-cacher.conf. You should read the included documentation in the file to ensure it is appropriate for your setup. Mostly the defaults will work just fine. By default pkg-cacher will let any system use its cache. You will probably want to limit it to your own systems on the line:

allowed_hosts=*

Once you have checked and updated pkg-cacher.conf, simply restart it.

Generate the new template cache

Now everything should be ready to go! Make sure both the 'vz' service and 'pkg-cacher' service are running

To get a list of what OS Templates you may now use, type the following:

vzpkgls

That will produce a list of available OS Templates. Use any name given in the list as a parameter to vzpkgcache to build that OS Template. Example:

vzpkgcache centos-5-i386-default

If you want to build all OS Templates you can simply run vzpkgcache without any paramters:

vzpkgcache

vzpkg2 should get to work generating your initial caches. Now you can run 'vzctl create' and use them.

Source

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