Re: [vserver] readonly root

From: Corin Langosch <corinl_at_gmx.de>
Date: Thu 10 Mar 2011 - 13:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <4D78CB50.9050408@gmx.de>

On 09.03.2011 15:10, Martin wrote:
> You may wish to read the Linux Filesystem Standard which tells you which
> part of the filesystem need to be read / write, which can be read only,
> etc. Beyond that you may wish to look at the overlay setup that live
> CDs use.

When trying to start a vserver from a read-only path it won't work.
chroot-sh complains that several files are read-only, especially
/etc/mtab. I'm now using "aufs" with mounting my "shared root" ro and an
additional very small tmpfs partition rw (so the vserver can be started).

> Have you looked at vashify / hardlinks?

Yes, but I think it's not the best for my needs. I may be I wrong, so
I'll explain my needs below. :)

> Over all what problem are you trying to solve? Read only filesystems
> may not be the best way of acheiving reduced memory / disk usage, etc.

I need to setup a shared hosting environment where users can also login
using ssh, for example to work with the shell/ installed tools. So my
idea was to have a shared root layout with all common stuff installed
there. It must be read-only, so the users dont alter it. The user data/
application code is in a separate folder and will be mounted inside the
vserver instance as needed.

Using this layout I hope to achive maximum performance (shared memory,
little virtualization overhead, ..), highest security and still giving
the users the freedom to use the shell/ tools. Now with "aufs", I'm only
worried if it's killing my reduced memory requirements.

Thanks,
Corin
Received on Thu Mar 10 13:00:27 2011

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