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Vserver installation "from scratch" (Fedora Core 4)

You're a fan of [Fedora Linux]? You want to play around with Linux-Vserver's or use them in production? But you are new to this and want an easy way to (quickly) start with a running system?

Note: If you didn't want a VServer installation guide to Fedora Core 4, maybe you were searching for a guide like this: [The Perfect Setup - Fedora Core 4]

This guide is aimed to assist you in a plain and basic installation "from scratch" to a running VServer enabled host system with also one installed basic guest system. It is assumed that you have basic knowledge of Linux administration and Fedora 4.


What you need:

What you don't need:


Okay, let's start:

1. installing the host system

2. Installing a vserver enabled kernel

A. Installing the kernel from source

cd /usr/src
wget ftp://ftp.probe-networks.lkams.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.12.4.tar.bz2
tar xjf linux-2.6.12.4.tar.bz2
cd /usr/src
wget http://www.13thfloor.at/vserver/s_rel26/v2.0/patch-2.6.12.4-vs2.0.diff.bz2
bzip2 -d patch-2.6.12.4-vs2.0.diff.bz2
cd linux-2.6.12.4
patch -p1 < ../patch-2.6.12.4-vs2.0.diff
cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.12.4
cp /boot/config-2.6.13-1.1526_FC4 .config
make menuconfig
  • select the Linux VServer option in the kernel config and modify to taste
  • If you are using an x86_64 system do not forget to enable the IA32 emulation if you want to use 32bit guests on your system!
  • exit and save configuration

B. Installing the host system from rpm

name=Daniel Hokka Zakrisson's packages for Fedora $releasever - $basearch - vserver
baseurl=http://rpm.hozac.com/fedora/dhozac/$releasever/$basearch/vserver
gpgkey=http://rpm.hozac.com/fedora/conf/keys/RPM-DHOZAC-GPG-KEY
enabled=1

3. Installing the vserver utilities on the host system

A. Installing the vserver utilities from source

cd /usr/src
wget http://www.13thfloor.at/vserver/s_rel26/v2.0/util-vserver-0.30.209.tar.bz2
tar xjf util-vserver-0.30.209.tar.bz2
cd util-vserver-0.30.209
  • IMPORTANT: At this point, make sure you have installed dietlibc and beecrypt/-devel by using:
yum install -y dietlibc beecrypt-devel
cd /usr/src/util-vserver-0.30.209
./configure --prefix=
make && make install && make install-distribution

4. Last minute host configuration

cd /usr/src
wget http://vserver.13thfloor.at/Stuff/SCRIPT/testme.sh
chmod 700 testme.sh;./testme.sh
rpm -U http://muh.at/rpm/yum-2.4.0-0.chroot.fc4.noarch.rpm
/etc/init.d/vprocunhide start
chkconfig --add vprocunhide
chkconfig vprocunhide on
setattr --barrier /vservers

Copy the PGP keys to the distribution directory of the utils (otherwise it will not be found on guest build time)

cp -r /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/ /usr/lib/util-vserver/distributions/fc4/pubkeys/

Now your FC4-vs2.0 host is ready to go.

5. Build your first guest system

vserver test build -m yum --hostname=test.example --interface test0=eth0:192.168.0.1/24 -- -d fc4
vyum test -- install yum
vserver test pkgmgmt internalize
  • IMPORTANT: Internal package management must be activated with vserver <vservername> pkgmgmt internalize before you can use the 'yum' command from within a guest.
vserver test start
vserver test enter

6. Configure your first guest system

pwconv
pwck
nameservers 192.168.0.1
# session    required     pam_loginuid.so

4. Things you might want to consider / remember

echo default >/etc/vservers/test/apps/init/mark
chkconfig add vservers-default
chkconfig vservers-default on

If you want some special procedure described on this page (which should be of public interest), either add yourself (you're welcome) or [mail to the autor]. Please do NOT mail the author for any support purposes, use the mailing list or IRC channel instead!

For further issues like more fine-grained configuration etc. Please read through the further documentation on this site.