How To Create Container In OpenVZ

In OpenVZ containers also known as Virtual Machine or VPS. Containers share the resources of the physical machine. Means a particular amount of Disk space and RAM will not be allocated to any particular VPS (Container). Resources pool equally shared by all Containers on demand.

OpenVZ provides templates for all Linux distributions. You will need to download those templates to create a container or VPS.

Download CentOS Linux VPS

Follow the below command to download the CentOS Linux template.

# cd /vz/template/cache
# wget http://download.openvz.org/template/precreated/ centos-6-x86_64.tar.gz.tar

Create Container

Note : 145143 is Container ID

After downloaded virtual machine template. Follow the below commands to create first VPS.

# vzctl create 145143 --ostemplate centos-6-x86_64

You will get some output like below:

Creating container private area (centos-6-x86_64)
Performing postcreate actions
CT configuration saved to /etc/vz/conf/145143.conf

Set IP Address

Now set the IP address to the container for example : 10.12.145.143.

# vzctl set 145143 --ipadd 10.12.145.143 --save

CT configuration saved to /etc/vz/conf/145143.conf

Set DNS Server

# vzctl set 145143 --nameserver 10.0.80.11 --save

CT configuration saved to /etc/vz/conf/145143.conf

Start Container Onboot

# vzctl set 145143 --onboot yes --save

UB limits were set successfully
CT configuration saved to /etc/vz/conf/145141.conf

Set Disk Space

# vzctl set 145143 --diskspace 50G:51G --save

CT configuration saved to /etc/vz/conf/145143.conf

Set Memory and Swap

# vzctl set 145143 --ram 2G --swap 512M --save

CT configuration saved to /etc/vz/conf/145143.conf

Set Hostname

# vzctl set 145143 --hostname vsrv71.looklinux.com --save

CT configuration saved to /etc/vz/conf/145143.conf

That’s it. Your container is ready to work just restart it. You can also set some other options like below if you want.

Set Root Password

# vzctl set 145143  --userpasswd root:redhat@123

Set CPUs

# vzctl set 145143 --cpus 4 --save

Set CPU Units

# vzctl set 145143 --cpuunits 100000 –save

Set CPU Limit

# vzctl set 145143 --cpulimit 4 --save

Start Container

# vzctl start 145143

Starting container...
Container is mounted
Adding IP address(es): 10.12.145.143
Setting CPU units: 1000
Container start in progress...

OR

Start Container In Verbose mode

# vzctl --verbose --verbose stop 145143

You will get some output like below:

Starting container...
Running: /usr/sbin/vzquota show 145143
Running: /usr/sbin/vzquota on 145143 -b 8388708 -B 9437284 -i 131172 -I 144279 -e 0 -n 0 -s 0
Mounting root: /vz/root/145143 /vz/private/145143
Running: /etc/vz/conf/vps.mount
Container is mounted
Adding IP address(es): 10.12.145.143
Running: /usr/libexec/vzctl/scripts/vps-net_add
Running container script: /etc/vz/dists/scripts/redhat-add_ip.sh
Setting CPU units: 1000
Running container script: /etc/vz/dists/scripts/set_console.sh
Running container script: /etc/vz/dists/scripts/redhat-set_hostname.sh
Running container script: /etc/vz/dists/scripts/set_dns.sh
Running: /usr/sbin/vzquota stat 145141 -f
Running: /usr/sbin/vzquota setlimit 145143-b 8388608 -B 9437184 -i 131072 -I 144179 -e 0 -n 0
Running container script: /etc/vz/dists/scripts/prestart.sh
Container start in progress...

Listing Container

# vzlist -a

CTID      NPROC STATUS    IP_ADDR         HOSTNAME
145143     19   running   10.12.145.143   vsrv71.looklinux.com

Stop/Restart Container

# vzctl stop 145143
# vzctl restart 145143

Destroy Container

Follow the below command to delete the container

# vzctl destroy 145143
Container is currently running. Stop it first.

Above you can see container is running, firt you will need to stop it to delete.

# vzctl stop 145143
Stopping container ...
Container was stopped
Container is unmounted

Run again

# vzctl destroy 145143
Destroying container private area: /vz/private/145143
Container private area was destroyed

# ls /etc/vz/conf/145143.*
/etc/vz/conf/145143.conf.destroyed

# vzctl status 145143
CTID 145143 deleted unmounted down

Note:- If you do not need the backup copy of the Container configuration files (with the .destroyed suffix), you may delete them manually.

I hope this article will help you to create container in OpenVz. If you have any queries and problem please comment in comment section.

Thanks:)