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items: OS template creation
items: Re: OS template creation

OS template creation
type: item
description: Hi there, I've discovered OpenVZ and I've just tested it. Well, not yet confident in the way to make it working. I have few questions, surely obvious for most of you: * At the present moment, is it better to have a host OS limited to 32 bit or 64 bit OS works fine? * In case of 32 bit host OS, can I have VEs using 64 bit templates? And the other way: 64 bit host OS with 32 bit VEs? * I'd like to have VEs using SLC4 (Scientific Linux CERN 4) based on RHEL4 (working with RPM and YUM). There is of course no template created yet, so I have to create one. Did not found any good explanation of what and how to do that job, just tricks and recipes. Maybe I'm a bit limited . For the last point, can someone give me the way to create a template from scratch? Maybe just the address of a good paper. If there is no and I succeed in setting everything up and running, I can write some wiki for newbies (OpenVZ for dummies )
creator: jmelyn
date: 2007-06-21T07:51:46-00:00

Re: OS template creation
type: item
description: jmelyn wrote on Thu, 21 June 2007 11:51 * At the present moment, is it better to have a host OS limited to 32 bit or 64 bit OS works fine? 64 bit OS works fine, but template tools are limited to 32-bit. That means you have to create 64-bit template in a more manual fashion. Quote: * In case of 32 bit host OS, can I have VEs using 64 bit templates? And the other way: 64 bit host OS with 32 bit VEs? 64 bit host OS handles 32 bit VEs just fine -- but not the other way! Quote: * I'd like to have VEs using SLC4 (Scientific Linux CERN 4) based on RHEL4 (working with RPM and YUM). There is of course no template created yet, so I have to create one. Did not found any good explanation of what and how to do that job, just tricks and recipes. Maybe I'm a bit limited . If for 32 bit, start from learning what vztmpl-centos-4 consists of (that all should be pretty straightforward), then modify it to use SLC repositories, then run vzpkgcache to create SLC templates. Any questions -- ask here.
creator: kir
date: 2007-06-21T10:08:28-00:00

Re: OS template creation
type: item
description: Fine! Thank you for your comments, kir . Now just three specific questions about dir and files: * Are the files *.list in config dir just the list returned by rpm -qa on the OS that has to become a VE? * Are the names of the different *.list files used as <os_name> when creating a new VE: vzctl create 101 --ostemplate <os_name> ...? * Do I need a vz-addons dir? What is it used for?
creator: jmelyn
date: 2007-06-21T14:54:55-00:00

Re: OS template creation
type: item
description: jmelyn * Are the files *.list in config dir just the list returned by rpm -qa on the OS that has to become a VE? Those files are the 'base' rpms you want to install Yum will install these packages and it's dependencies jmelyn * Are the names of the different *.list files used as <os_name> when creating a new VE: vzctl create --ostemplate <os_name> ...? /vz/template/$os/$ver/$arch/config/$xxxx.list vzctl create 10001 --ostemplate $os-$ver-$arch-$xxxx E.g. /vz/template/cern/4/i386/config/minimal.list vzctl create 10001 --ostemplate cern-4-i386-minimal jmelyn * Do I need a vz-addons dir? What is it used for? Yes, you'll need the makedev, vzdev since it'll create your vps devices /dev/ (udev don't work inside a VE)
creator: sspt
date: 2007-06-21T15:04:53-00:00

Re: OS template creation
type: item
description: For cern 4.5 you can use CentOS 4 metadata with the following yum.conf based on centOS 4 yum.conf [main] cachedir=/vz/template/cern/4/i386/yum-cache/ # Ugly hack to make yum disregard /etc/yum.repos.d/*repo files # from both the host system and from inside VPS reposdir=/dev/null # Fix for bug #78 - we do not want to install dummy, # we want to upgrade it. installonlypkgs='' [cern4-vz-addons] name=OpenVZ add-ons for Cern 4 - i386 baseurl=file:///vz/template/cern/4/i386/vz-addons/ enabled=1 gpgcheck=0 [cern4-base] name=Cern 4 - i386 - Base baseurl=ftp://linuxsoft.cern.ch/cern/slc44/i386/yum/os enabled=1 gpgcheck=1 [cern4-updates-released] name=Cern 4 - i386 - Released Updates baseurl=ftp://linuxsoft.cern.ch/cern/slc44/i386/yum/updates enabled=1 gpgcheck=1
creator: sspt
date: 2007-06-21T15:06:25-00:00

Re: OS template creation
type: item
description: Thanx for the information, sspt. * *.list in config dir: If I want to create my own template of Scientific Linux, I should put only the base package list (.rpm) so that I get all of them at the end of VE's installation. But I don't know how to get them (only the base ones), so I suppose providing all (about 1000!) won't be an error. * yum.conf: I modified the file from the centos-4 template and got roughly the one you gave me. I'm in the right direction . * vz-addons: I don't understand yet the use of those files, but you told me that to access its own private files, a VE needs them. In order to create the Scientific Linux template from CentOS, should I change them or just make a simple copy? Because there is a dummy-centos-4-1.0-3.swsoft.i386.rpm file that must be specific to CentOS... Maybe I can change the name to dummy-SLC4.swsoft.i386.rpm?
creator: jmelyn
date: 2007-06-22T07:06:43-00:00

Re: OS template creation
type: item
description: No need to change the name -- dummy-centos4 should be fine.
creator: kir
date: 2007-06-22T11:26:03-00:00