Basic operations in OpenVZ environment

This article assumes you have already installed OpenVZ. If not, follow the link 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.