From: Charles Dale (bug_at_aphid.net)
Date: Wed 05 Nov 2003 - 05:10:31 GMT
Hi Ian,
VServer doesn't really care too much about the distro. This is especially
true for the kernel patch - it will run on any distro that is built around a
2.4 kernel (i.e. every important distro).
With respect to the tools, the basic functionality should be 100% portable.
That being said, Jack's tools in particular contain a number of Red Hat (or
at least RPM based distro) specific scripts (vrpm etc). Also they assume a
SysV style initscript system (i.e. won't work easily with Slackware I
assume).
Any reason why you wouldn't use Fedora (i.e. "RHL developed openly")? It's
not like Red Hat's going away completely, it's just changing development
mode. Personally I'm very happy about the change and will use both Fedora &
RHEL. Not that you shouldn't use the opportunity to try out Debian/etc and
see if they suit you.
As for your other questions:
1. Re: which version - Use a stock 2.4.22 kernel with the v1.0 patches. The
patch and the suitable tools are available here:
http://www.13thfloor.at/vserver/s_release/v1.00/
2. Re: how to start - That's a hard question to answer in general. Perhaps
the currently-being-written Virtualizing HOWTO would help you:
http://www.linux-vserver.org/index.php?page=VirtualizeHowto
I would recommend that you start with a fresh distro install, then add your
current hosting server as a vserver on this fresh install. That way you can
easily upgrade your vserver - you can back it up, upgrade it, revert if
necessary, swap it to a second machine, whatever. Yay vservers.
3. Re: vrpm - Well I didn't know the answer to your question, but running
"vrpm" without arguments told me that "vrpm ALL -- rpm -Uvh ..." will do
what you want.
There's no patched up2date as far as I know, but you can do what you want
with a simple script (not tested!):
a. Set up2date to retrieveOnly, that way RPMs will get dumped in
/var/spool/up2date - do this by edit /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date and changing
retrieveOnly=0 to retrieveOnly=1;
b. Put "vrpm ALL -- rpm -Uvh /var/spool/up2date/*.rpm && mv
/var/spool/up2date/*.rpm /var/spool/up2date/installed/" in your daily cron.
(And make sure to create the installed/ directory, and monitor the account
that receives the cron results in case there are any errors during the RPM
installation.)
NOTE: I don't really advise automated RPM updating! Doing it with 1 server
is alright but you should really do it manually for 100 vservers. Just get
up2date to send you a message when there are new packages available (you
could do this on RHN or write your own script), then run the "vrpm ALL ..."
command yourself.
Cheers,
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: vserver-admin_at_daffy.hulpsystems.net
[mailto:vserver-admin_at_daffy.hulpsystems.net] On Behalf Of ian douglas
Sent: Wednesday, 5 November 2003 3:31 PM
To: vserver_at_list.linux-vserver.org
Subject: RE: [Vserver] is there any "getting started with vserver"
documentation anywhere?
Considering RedHat's recent press release about discontinuing the "RedHat
Linux" line in favor of the more expensive enterprise version, I'd really
like a few answers from others (only had one off-list reply) regarding which
operating system is going to be my best bet since I'm going to have to
convert my server to another Linux distro now.
I'll be starting a whole new server to manage everything but curious,
obviously, which distro people have had the most success with other than
RedHat.
Thanks for any help on that, as well as my other unanswered questions.
-id
> I searched the site's documentation and found the multi-page "this is
> what it's capable of" documentation, but didn't see any offhand that
> answered the following questions. I sent them to Jacques, but I'd like
> to pose it to the list
> in general for the 1.0 release so I can get started on vserver in
> the coming
> weeks.
>
> ---
> Hi Jacques,
>
> I've been daydreaming about a vserver setup for my system.
>
> A few things that perhaps would be handy to have in the FAQ:
>
> - what OS works 'best'? Kernel version is obviously important, but it
> would be neat to see some sort of volunteered information from various
> users as to the OS
> and version of that OS, that they have the most success with
>
> - how does one get started? is it best to start with a totally fresh
> machine and build from there, or could I start from a medium-sized
> virtual hosting setup
> using Linuxconf and build a vserver and go from there? I guess
> I'm looking for
> guidance on what should/should not get copied over when building the first
> vserver - once I build the first one, I can just use the vserver
> software to
> duplicate it, but I'm worried about disk space and how to
> actually mount/share
> file system areas...
>
> - any patched versions of up2date out there? or would I have to tell
> up2date to save a copy of the RPM's on the disk somewhere and run the
> vserver rpm utility
> to patch all vservers? If I have 100 vservers, is there a quicker
> way to tell it
> to patch all vservers, or would I have to literally type "rpm
> server1 server2
> server3 ... server99 server100 -Uvh *rpm" ?
>
> ---
>
> Thanks for any additional feedback.
> -id
>
>
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> Vserver_at_list.linux-vserver.org
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>
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