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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.
Page Index / Contents
What you need:
- The Fedora Core installation CDs (you can get a list of mirrors from the [fedora website])
- a bit of clue in server administration (to avoid another bot system in the net)
- working internet access (of course) to download remaining stuff
- enough time to work through this guide (and probably enough coffee and pizza ;-) )
What you don't need:
- Money (this guide is based on free available soures; [donations] to the developers are appreciated though)
- paid support tickets (they won't assist you - better look on the [Mailing List] or on the IRC channel)
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Okay, let's start:
1. installing the host system
- boot from the FC4 CD and install a basic system (e.g. custom and "minimal" plus development tools; main services should always run on the guest system)
- Hint: It usually makes sense to create a '/vservers' partition to contain the guest systems - if you need more space, you can easily move that partition to a new, larger disc and prevent long downtimes
- IMPORTANT: SElinux must be deactivated (unless you know exactly what you're doing!)
SELINUX=disabled
- log into the installed system and upgrade it to the latest updates
- Hint: You may want to exclude kernel updates in your update repo to prevent unnecessary download of kernels as shown in [Step 2] below.
yum -y upgrade
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2. Installing a vserver enabled kernel
- IMPORTANT: There are two methods of installing a vserver kernel on Fedora Core 4: [from source] and [from precompiled RPM]. Use one or the other. Do not use both. Recommended variant is [from RPM], this is proven, stable and contains latest tested releases.
- You should make sure that Fedora Core kernels don't take precedence over the vserver kernels, do this by adding exclude=kernel to /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo. It might look something like this when you're done:
- /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo:
[updates-released]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Released Updates
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch/
mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors/updates-released-fc$releasever
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
exclude=kernel kernel-smp
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A. Installing the kernel from source
cd /usr/src
wget ftp://ftp.probe-networks.lkams.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.14.3.tar.bz2
tar xjf linux-2.6.14.3.tar.bz2
cd /usr/src
wget http://www.13thfloor.at/vserver/s_rel26/v2.01/patch-2.6.14.3-vs2.01.diff.bz2
bzip2 -d patch-2.6.14.3-vs2.01.diff.bz2
cd linux-2.6.14.3
patch -p1 < ../patch-2.6.14.3-vs2.01.diff
- copy the latest config from your /boot directory to the kernel source tree and configure your VServer options:
cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.14.3
cp /boot/config-`uname -r`.config .config
make menuconfig
- Enable the Legacy Kernel API option in the kernel config (Section "Linux VServer")
- If you are using an x86_64 system do not forget to enable the IA32 emulation (Section "Executable file formats / Emulations") if you want to use 32bit guests on your system!
- exit and save configuration
- build your new kernel and install it
- example (IMPORTANT: you have to use your relating boot loader/boot manager installation!):
make bzImage && make modules && make modules_install && make install
- (you may want to take a cup of coffee and/or a pizza while this is running, depending on your hardware)
- important note: You may want to activate your VServer kernel in /boot/grub/grub.conf as your default kernel so that it's loaded on reboot by default. To do this, just change the default=N to point to your VServer entry (starting with first entry beeing default=0; just count down then)
- reboot your system and continue with [step 3].
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A. Alternative: Installing the kernel from Experimental source
- you may use a later kernel with [Experimental release candidates] (still considered to be stable) as well, as often recommended by Herbert Poetzl on the mailing list
- alternative steps for [above] (also use your preferred mirror instead):
cd /usr/src
wget ftp://ftp.probe-networks.lkams.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.16.20.tar.bz2
tar xjf linux-2.6.16.20.tar.bz2
wget http://vserver.13thfloor.at/Experimental/patch-2.6.16.20-vs2.0.2-rc22.diff
cd linux-2.6.16.20
patch -p1 < ../patch-2.6.16.20-vs2.0.2-rc22.diff
cp /boot/config-`uname -r`.config .config
make menuconfig
- configure and install your kernel as [above]
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B. Installing the host kernel from rpm
- Daniel Hokka Zakrisson has provided rpms for both the vserver-kernel and util-vserver software. To activate his repository of software add the following file to your /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory:
[dhozac-vserver]
name=Daniel Hokka Zakrisson's packages for Fedora $releasever - $basearch - vserver
baseurl=http://rpm.hozac.com/dhozac/fedora/$releasever/vserver/$basearch
http://muh.at/dhozac/fedora/$releasever/vserver/$basearch
gpgkey=http://rpm.hozac.com/fedora/conf/keys/RPM-DHOZAC-GPG-KEY
enabled=1
- Once the repository is added issue the following command to install the vserver kernel.
- For Single processor systems
yum install kernel
-
yum install kernel-smp
- reboot your system and continue with [step 3].
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3. Installing the vserver utilities on the host system
- IMPORTANT: Like the vserver kernel, util-vserver can be installed either [from source] or [from precompiled RPM]. The use of both *will* result in problems, so choose only one or the other!
[Page Index]
A. Installing the vserver utilities from source
- download the latest util-vserver alpha release and (if applicable) also the latest patch from the latest [stable release] and apply the patch (if applicable)
cd /usr/src
wget http://www.13thfloor.at/vserver/s_rel26/v2.01/util-vserver-0.30.209.tar.bz2
tar xjf util-vserver-0.30.209.tar.bz2
- IMPORTANT: At this point, make sure you have installed dietlibc and beecrypt/-devel by using:
yum install -y dietlibc beecrypt-devel
- build and install the util-vserver tools
- example (installing tools in /lib and /sbin and also /etc/init.d):
cd /usr/src/util-vserver-0.30.209
./configure --prefix= --sysconfdir=/etc
make && make install && make install-distribution
Now continue with [step 4]
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A. Alternative: Installing the vserver utilities from Experimental source
- Same as with the kernel, from time to time there are [releases of new utilities] still considered beeing stable, but not yet linked to the "official" release.
cd /usr/src
wget http://www.13thfloor.at/~ensc/util-vserver/files/alpha/util-vserver-0.30.210.tar.bz2
tar xjf util-vserver-0.30.210.tar.bz2
- IMPORTANT: At this point, make sure you have installed dietlibc and beecrypt/-devel by using:
yum install -y dietlibc beecrypt-devel
- build and install the util-vserver tools
- example (installing tools in /lib and /sbin and also /etc/init.d):
cd /usr/src/util-vserver-0.30.210
./configure --prefix= --sysconfdir=/etc
make && make install && make install-distribution
Now continue with [step 4]
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B. Installing the vserver utilities system from rpm
- Issue the following command to install the vserver utils (assuming you have enabled Daniel Hokka Zakrisson's repo as mentioned [above]).
yum install util-vserver*
Now continue with [step 4]
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4. Final host configuration
- Note: This section is not necessary if you used the RPMs above. In that case continue with [step 5]
- You now have the VServer kernel and utils installed, you are almost ready to create your first VServer, but first we must prepare the host.
- test the installed kernel to see if it is operational
- Note: we used the [testme.sh] script from Herbert to test the system
- example:
cd /usr/src
wget http://vserver.13thfloor.at/Stuff/SCRIPT/testme.sh
chmod 700 testme.sh;./testme.sh
- Hint: If the above test fails, first check that /sbin/ is in your path - it probably won't be if you did change to root using su rather than su - !
- replace the FC4 yum with a patched version
- FC4's yum does not work with chroot system correctly, so we must replace it. I [1] have applied the patch to the actual 2.4.1-1 rpm package and linked this for public use in the FC4 patched rpm's section.
- Installation example:
rpm -U http://muh.at/rpm/yum-2.4.1-1.chroot.fc4.noarch.rpm
- Start /etc/init.d/vprocunhide and add it to boot scripts:
/etc/init.d/vprocunhide start
chkconfig --add vprocunhide
chkconfig vprocunhide on
- Note: if you installed the util-vserver support programs from sources without using "prefix=" (no path), you will need to copy the vprocunhide script from <prefix>/etc/init.d to /etc/init.d so that it can be started by the Fedora boot process (if <prefix> is not set, it defaults to /usr/local).
- Set the "barrier" attribute to the "/vservers" directory:
- Further information can be found on the alpha util-vserver page at "2.4 to 2.6 transition"
setattr --barrier /vservers
Copy the PGP keys to the distribution directory of the utils (otherwise they will not be found on guest build time)
- Hint: If you used another prefix for utils, add accordingly to the path
mkdir /lib/util-vserver/distributions/fc4/pubkeys/
cp /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/* /lib/util-vserver/distributions/fc4/pubkeys/
Now your FC4-vs2.0 host is ready to go.
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5. Build your first guest system
- IMPORTANT: It is wise to prepare your vserver build command "on paper" before rushing ahead as a rebuild will take several minutes. For a list and description of all vserver build options read the output of vserver XXX build --help
- Set up your vserver using your prepared command. It should look similar to the following.
vserver gast build -m yum --hostname=gast.example --interface gast0=eth0:192.168.0.1/24 -- -d fc4
- To install further packages to the guest from the host use vyum <vservername> -- install <package> if you chose not to internalize package management. If you are using internal package management you must use yum install <package> from within the guest system (see [step 6]).
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6. Things you might want to consider / remember
- IMPORTANT: Before you can use the yum (or the apt) command from within a guest you must activate internal package management as shown below. If you only want a managed guest, do not install yum on the guest and do not activate internal package management!
# to enable unmanaged guest
vyum gast -- install yum
vserver gast pkgmgmt internalize
- Probably helpful and/or necessary rpm packages to install into each guest:
- yum (if you want internal package management / unmanaged guests)
- openssh-server (if you want to have remote shell access)
- rootfiles (always good if you want to use "root" usage)
- vim-minimal (or any other editor you might like to edit any text file, e.g. joe, nano)
- passwd (otherwise you will not be able to change your passwords)
- system-config-date (if you want to easily set a timezone for the guest)
- which (always helpful)
- vixie-cron, crontabs (to have a working crond/crontabs)
- sendmail or postfix (to have a mailsystem as well, you may use any preferred mailer)
- xinetd (if you want rpc services)
- pure-ftpd (if you want to run a ftp-server which may take user's from a database; look into FC4 patched rpm's page for a working guest version)
- Caution: On FC4 Guests, due to the "audit" package, pam authentication (also used with openssh) enables "pam_loginuid.so" in the /etc/pam.d/* files. Comment those out as they are not necessary and will not load within a guest anyway. This probably is also necessary on updates later on, if the configs get changed. You therefore may add the following command line to a cronjob file or your software update script:
/bin/sed --in-place -e "s/^session.*required.*pam_loginuid.so/# session\trequired\tpam_loginuid.so/g" /etc/pam.d/*
- After you've installed and configured your services within the guest OS it's always a good idea (i.e it is necessary!) to ensure that each server instance binds only to its relating ip(s) to avoid annoying IP conflict.
- If you want your new guest to start on host bootup, add a one-line tag to /etc/vservers/<vserver-name>/apps/init/mark. All marked vservers will be activated with a corresponding a /etc/init.d/vservers-<tag> script (usually just a copied and renamed /etc/init.d/vservers-default)
echo default >/etc/vservers/gast/apps/init/mark
chkconfig add vservers-default
chkconfig vservers-default on
- If you want to save a huge amount of space on not needed packages within a guest (e.g. kernel) it is recommended to replace them with the following fake packages:
- Note: If you used the RPM version of util-vserver, this is already the default. Continue with [step 7]
- Those three packages save around 50 MB of space on a fresh built FC4 guest - and even more on a fully configured one, as relating sub-dependancies are not required any more as well!
- Credits for those packages go to [The CRU APT Repository]
- Important: Download to and install the following three packages from the host system only! Therefore use external package management for this step!
wget http://naturidentisch.de/packages/fc4-vps/vps-dev/vps-dev-3.999-3.cru.noarch.rpm
wget http://naturidentisch.de/packages/fc4-vps/vps-fakekernel/vps-fakekernel-2.6.999-2.cru.noarch.rpm
wget http://naturidentisch.de/packages/fc4-vps/vps-fakepackages/vps-fakepackages-1.0-5.cru.noarch.rpm
vrpm gast -- -Uhv vps-{dev,fakekernel,fakepackages}-*
- [The CRU APT Repository] also supplies a repo for those three, as well as an vps-sysv and a vps-pam package. Those have not yet been tested - if you did, replace this line with your experiences and drop a note to the mailing list!
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7. Configure your (first) guest system
- You can now "boot" into the system.
vserver gast start
vserver gast enter
- You are now booted into your brand new VServer. A few things need to be set up before you can get going however
- Create a shadow file within the guest and check it for errors:
pwconv
pwck
passwd root
- Add a valid nameserver into /etc/resolv.conf so that the guest can use one
- example: /etc/resolv.conf:
nameserver 192.168.0.1
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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.
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