Installing an openSUSE vserver guest

Installing and running openSUSE (previously knows as SUSE Linux) as a vserver guest.

Test configuration

Host:

• Debian Etch AMD64, Kernel 2.6.15.4-vs2.0.2-rc9, util-vserver 0.30.210 + similar patch, or
• Debian Etch AMD64, 2.6.18-4-vserver-amd64, util-vserver 0.30.212-1 + patch (see below)

Guest:

• SLES 9, or
• openSUSE 10.2

Running openSUSE vservers on a Debian server

Installation

Debian is lacking the required rpm tools to install an openSUSE or SLES system directly via vserver build (the required apt-rpm is available in source only for apt-0.5.xx, and Debian is already at 0.6.xx).

Therefore, use the normal openSUSE installation procedure and then copy the system to a vserver directory:

• Install openSUSE on raw metal or in a virtual machine (such as VirtualBox).
• Boot from CD (openSUSE or Debian - whatever you prefer), or just boot into the OS and log in as root.
• tar the whole system, copy it to the vserver host and untar it to the desired vserver location, usually /var/lib/vservers/<servername>
• Create /etc/vservers/<servername> manually, or copy it from another vserver.

Post install cleanup

• remove some startup service, either delete the appropriate /etc/init.d/.... links or run the following from inside the vserver:

# chkconfig -d -f boot.swap boot.isapnp boot.idedma  boot.loadmodules \
                  boot.device-mapper boot.md boot.proc boot.shm boot.sched \
                  boot.rootfsck hotplug boot.localfs boot.crypto boot.clock \
                  boot.scpm boot.ipconfig

# chkconfig -d -f coldplug irq_balancer random network fbset powersaved kbd hwscan

• remove unneeded packages:

# rpm -e irqbalance kernel-smp grub reiserfs xfsprogs raidtools ntfsprogs \
         module-init-tools mkinitrd powersave hotplug mdadm

Note: there are a number of redundant packages remaining that can not be removed due to yast2 depending on them.

initscripts

openSUSE's /etc/init.d/rc expects two environment variables: RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL. The vserver.start script fails to set those. There are a couple workarounds:

• Edit /etc/init.d/rc to set those values (not recommended (why?)). For example, inserting these lines near the top of the file:

PREVLEVEL="N"
RUNLEVEL="$1"

• Apply the following patch to vserver.start to set the values:

--- vserver.start,orig  2006-12-09 12:37:58.000000000 -0700
+++ vserver.start       2007-06-11 12:27:27.000000000 -0600
@@ -141,7 +141,7 @@
     $_VUNAME     --xid self --set -t context="$VSERVER_DIR" -- \
     $_VATTRIBUTE --set "${OPTS_VATTRIBUTE[@]}" -- \
     $_SAVE_CTXINFO "$VSERVER_DIR" \
-    $_ENV -i "${OPTS_ENV[@]}" \
+    $_ENV -i "${OPTS_ENV[@]}" PREVLEVEL="N" RUNLEVEL="$RUNLEVEL_START" \
     $_VCONTEXT   --migrate-self --endsetup --chroot $SILENT_OPT \
     "${OPTS_VCONTEXT_MIGRATE[@]}" "${OPTS_VCONTEXT_ENTER[@]}" -- \
     "${INITCMD_START[@]}"
@@ -157,7 +157,7 @@
     $_EXEC_ULIMIT      "$VSERVER_DIR/ulimits" \
     $_CHCONTEXT_COMPAT "${CHCONTEXT_OPTS[@]}" "${CHCONTEXT_INIT_OPTS[@]}" \
     $_SAVE_CTXINFO     "$VSERVER_DIR" \
-    $_ENV -i "${OPTS_ENV[@]}" \
+    $_ENV -i "${OPTS_ENV[@]}" PREVLEVEL="N" RUNLEVEL="$RUNLEVEL_START" \
     $_CHAINECHO "${_IS_FAKEINIT:+$startsync_pipe}" "" \
     $_CAPCHROOT        "${CAPCHROOT_OPTS[@]}" . \
     "${INITCMD_START[@]}"

edit me: do we need to modify the vserver.stop script as well?