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What happens if a user upgrades a VPS kernel? [message #10400]

Sun, 18 February 2007 02:43

jarcher
Messages: 91
Registered: August 2006
Location: Smithfield, Rhode Island

Member

Hi All, I have a kernel question...

I realize that withOpenVZ all VPSes share the same instance of the host system’s kernel. So if I’m running it on Debian Sarge they the kernel is 2.4.8 or whatever it is.

What happens if a user starts a Debian Sarge template and then tries to upgrade to say Etch, which uses the 2.6.18 kernel? Does everything go down in flames?

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Re: What happens if a user upgrades a VPS kernel? [message #10406 is a reply to message #10400]

Sun, 18 February 2007 21:23

kir
Messages: 1645
Registered: August 2005
Location: Moscow, Russia

Senior Member

A kernel that is installed on the hardware node (i.e. not in one of VEs) is used.

If any kernels (or kernel modules) are installed inside any VEs, they are just not used. At all.

Kir Kolyshkin

http://static.openvz.org/userbars/openvz-developer.png

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Re: What happens if a user upgrades a VPS kernel? [message #10410 is a reply to message #10406]

Mon, 19 February 2007 00:11

jarcher
Messages: 91
Registered: August 2006
Location: Smithfield, Rhode Island

Member

Thanks for the reply. So then, does this effectively preclude the user of a VPS from making any upgrades at all that would require a kernel or libc6 upgrade?

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Re: What happens if a user upgrades a VPS kernel? [message #10411 is a reply to message #10410]

Mon, 19 February 2007 01:17

kir
Messages: 1645
Registered: August 2005
Location: Moscow, Russia

Senior Member

No. libc can be different in each VE, and the kernel we provide seems to work fine with any distro we checked. So, VE owner can upgrade his glibc, and it's host system owner's task to upgrade the kernel. Certainly VE owner can upgrade kernel in his VE as well — it's just that kernel will not be used.

See, kernel is the same across all VEs. VEs are pretty much like ordinary Linux systems, it's just that all VEs on the same physical box run under the same kernel.

Kir Kolyshkin

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Re: What happens if a user upgrades a VPS kernel? [message #10557 is a reply to message #10411]

Thu, 22 February 2007 04:21

jarcher
Messages: 91
Registered: August 2006
Location: Smithfield, Rhode Island

Member

kir wrote on Sun, 18 February 2007 20:17

See, kernel is the same across all VEs. VEs are pretty much like ordinary Linux systems, it's just that all VEs on the same physical box run under the same kernel.

Okay, thanks. I did understand the VEs all share the same kernel. I am trying to understand the remifications of that requirement. My concern is that a VPS user will do something like distupgrade and find themselves in hot water.

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Re: What happens if a user upgrades a VPS kernel? [message #24913 is a reply to message #10400]

Tue, 11 December 2007 23:20

SoftDux
Messages: 55
Registered: November 2007
Location: Johannesburg, South Afric...

Member

ok, so just how does one update the kernel without downtime?

Do you simply prepare a new server, with the new OS & kernel, and then just move the VZ's over?

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