Basic operations in OpenVZ environment

This article assumes you have already installed OpenVZ and prepared the OS template cache(s). If not, follow the links to perform the steps needed.

Create and start a container

To create and start a container, run the following commands:

[host-node]# vzctl create CTID --ostemplate osname
[host-node]# vzctl set CTID --ipadd a.b.c.d --save
[host-node]# vzctl set CTID --nameserver a.b.c.d --save
[host-node]# vzctl start CTID

Here CTID is the numeric ID for the container; osname is the name of the OS template for the container, and a.b.c.d is the IP address to be assigned to the container.

Example:

[host-node]# vzctl create 101 --ostemplate fedora-core-5-minimal
[host-node]# vzctl set 101 --ipadd 10.1.2.3 --save
[host-node]# vzctl set 101 --nameserver 10.0.2.1 --save
[host-node]# vzctl start 101

Your freshly-created container should be up and running now; you can see its processes:

[host-node]# vzctl exec CTID ps ax

Enter to and exit from the container

To enter container give the following command:

[host-node]# vzctl enter CTID
entered into container CTID
[container]#

To exit from container, just type exit and press Enter:

[container]# exit
exited from container VEID
[host-node]#

Stop and destroy the container

To stop container:

[host-node]# vzctl stop CTID
Stopping container ...
Container was stopped
Container is unmounted

And to destroy container:

[host-node]# vzctl destroy CTID
Destroying container private area: /vz/private/CTID
Container private area was destroyed

Now, when you know how to manage your container, learn about Resource management.