Chris Walker's Blog

OpenVZ and other virtualized systems are incredible, the ability to run a system on another system (untechies, we call this a VPS), is immense in itself. Being able to section of X memory, Y processes and Z processor time for not only a service but an entire system is one of the largest benefits.

Follow up:

Intro

I'll be acquiring a server within the next week or so (I HOPE), and with this server, I plan to setup a set of VPS to provide a few different services, and maybe even give them out. Before I've even got that far, I took the time to setup a Virtual Machine in VBOX for this. Truth be told, this system has performed about as close to a real server as I could imagine for a virtualized system. You can read more about what openvz features here at the OpenVZ Wiki.

Before I get any further. Some definitions that are discussed in the openvz wiki need to be described. A container, is essentially a virtual entity that the server, or host, creates. A single host can house numerous containers, hundreds depending on the system the host is on. These containers are usually created with a template, based on an already existing *nix distro. I may refer to containers as vz's, virtual nodes, ve's or guests throughout this.

Preparation

In my case, There was technically already a free system that I was able to create in minutes through VirtualBox. However, I would not recommend my method for production use. With one exception, creating the host and its containers using an advanced method of installation for the host operating system, though not covered in this, there will eventually be a post for this. I will say however that debian's expert installation mode is exactly what you are looking for and not as 'expert' required as one might think, by making the kernel larger and telling the installer to install _all_ drivers and modules, but possibly not use them. This system can be extremely portable.

For my host system I will be using debian 5.0 with backports. Note that the instructions will probably also work for the following distros: Ubuntu 8.04 and 9.10. Surely after linking to the OpenVZ site, you've probably seen their installation documentation, which is what I followed, however I had quite a time understanding some of it, which is why this is here.

Install your OS as you typically would, however, to prevent excess proceses, I recommend not installing 'standard system' and install the things you need as you go along. I'd also like to point out that throughout this I use nano (if you find it irritating and wish to flame me for being a nano user, do it there), you may use your own text editor, it will be referenced here as EDITOR <file> when needed.

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