Duplicate a Virtual Server

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vzfanatic

Active Member
Jul 22, 2008
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Hey gang..

I've looked through the posts, and can't find an answer to this (if there is one, please paste it to me).

I have built a CENTOS container exactly the way I want it. Now, i want to deploy it to some other boxes that have proxmox on it.

I know how to rsync from one metal box to another, is there some tips I can get for copying the finished container over to the other boxes?

I expect to have to change the IP's of the container, but what else?

Is there some step by step guide? I've got 4 instances of proxmox servers to do this on.

Thanks for greatness!
 
vzdump is a backup/restore utility - not a template toolkit.

The problem is that your 'template' contains some private data, which should not be shared at all:

- ssh private keys
- other keys (database)

but that depends on your installation.
 
Hi, just to briefly add to this discussion. On stock install OpenVZ environments, you can get away with just a "tar" duplication if you want, as a means to 'clone' the VM data; although vzdump is probably a slightly cleaner way to do this / automate the steps.

Note that the vz config files for a given VEID OpenVZ VHOST reside in /etc/vz/conf/VEID.conf

Likely you won't want to play with much of the content in this file, but the last section/stanza will be relevant to change the name and IP of the virtual host:

(for example, from a fresh created test CentOS 5 virtual host ...)

--paste--
100 cd /etc/vz/conf
...
106 more 108.conf

top ~90% of file cropped... then ...

# CPU fair sheduler parameter
CPUUNITS="1000"
CPUS="1"
VE_ROOT="/var/lib/vz/root/$VEID"
VE_PRIVATE="/var/lib/vz/private/$VEID"
OSTEMPLATE="centos-5-standard_5.2-1_i386"
ORIGIN_SAMPLE="pve.auto"
IP_ADDRESS="127.0.0.1"
HOSTNAME="centos-test-host.test.domain"
DESCRIPTION="CentOS 5 (standard)"
NAMESERVER="10.1.1.1"
SEARCHDOMAIN="test.domain"

--endpaste--



If you want to do as little as possible via command line, then your 'easy' way to do this might be,

-- take a dump of your 'golden copy' vzhost using 'vzdump' as root user on console of the 'source' ProxVE host.
-- on a ProxVE host where you intend to deploy a clone openvz host: create via web interface a new openvz VHOST to act as a 'place holder'
-- then start a bit of work on the root console of the 'target' ProxVE host / as root:
-- bring a copy of the 'golden copy' vzdump file over to this 'target' ProxVE host (via scp )
-- use vzdump with the 'restore' flag option to extract the VM data
-- manually destroy via command line the private data for the 'place holder' VM and put the 'real content' as derived from your vzdump-restore golden image -- in its place (simpy 'mv' the directory to the appropriate location)
-- edit the vz config file in /etc/vz/conf for your VHOST to reflect its new ID
(IP address, hostname, etc)

To force regeneration of ssh keys, I believe hints are sitting inside the /etc/init.d/sshd init script file; it looks to me that the sshd startup script will auto-generate keys if there are none present on the filesystem. So it likely is a matter of just starting the vhost, deleting the existing ssh keys, and then restarting the host - to force it to regenerate fresh keys for this instance of the vhost.

(there appear to be 3 keyfiles, stored ~ @ /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key ... type file names)

Clearly if you have other apps installed in your vhost which need to be adjusted / re-keyed in the same manner - I suspect a similar process will be possible, depending on what those apps are. (Database, etc - maybe need default passwords changed ?)


Hope this helps slightly,

Tim
 
Alright, I'll give it a go and report my results. Thank you all for your help!

You guys rock!
 
to regenerate SSH keys do the following:(for SSH2 Protocol) (don't use SSH1 protocol since it is not secure anymore)

Code: 
ssh-keygen -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key -N '' -t rsa
ssh-keygen -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key -N '' -t dsa

and answer "yes" to copy over the existing keys.
 
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