[BlueOnyx:08421] Re: OpenVZ template - can't start setup

[Michael Stauber]

Hi Frank,

> I was testing a BlueOnyx install as openVZ container on a Proxmox
> server.
> I've downloaded templates from http://devel.blueonyx.it/openvz , the 5.5
> and the 5.6 (I tried the two versions).

Actually try the BlueOnyx 5107R OS template, which you can find in the same 
directory. The most recent one is this here:

http://devel.blueonyx.it/openvz/blueonyx-5107R-SL6.1-i386-BX11-20110903.tar.gz
 
> After renaming the template (or Proxmox can't see it) I can create and
> start a VM with it, no problem.

Yeah, Proxmox has some weird ideas how OS templates should be named. Which is 
a bit silly, as OpenVZ itself doesn't really care how an OS template is named.

> I launch a VNC console, I have the root prompt, it's OK, but I see that
> there is no network-script.sh in /root. why? 

Because it's not needed. The script /root/network_settings.sh is only used on 
the CD-Version of BlueOnyx, where it can be used to configure the network 
settings.

In OpenVZ VPS's the network is already configured automatically for the VPS 
through OpenVZ itself. When you create the VPS, you use "venet" network 
devices and assign an IP to the VPS and when the VPS is created, this IP and 
the necessary network config files are then automatically created by OpenVZ.

Additionally /root/network_settings.sh only deals with setting up eth network 
devices and not the more secure venet devices that you find on OpenVZ.

Actually OpenVZ supports both eth and venet style network interfaces, but like 
said: venet is more secure as it prevents that a VPS user can sniff the 
network traffic of all other VPS's on the same node. Hence our BlueOnyx OS 
templates use only venet and don't even work with eth style network interfaces 
anymore.

> Now I launch the GUI. The "intro.html" page appears with the "start"
> button, click on it... But nothing appends. It stays here, on
> intro.html.

This is probably because your admin/root password was already changed during 
or right after the VPS creation. The initial web based setup will not run if 
the admin and root password are not set to "blueonyx" at the time of the 
setup. You can set a real password in the web based setup.

If the "admin" user is missing after the setup of the VPS, then the most 
likely probable cause for this is that the script that created it didn't run 
or failed for another reason. For example it fails to run if you don't enable 
2nd Level Disk Quota for the VPS.

So here are the things to observe when creating a BlueOnyx VPS on Proxmox:

Rename the OS Template to whatever Proxmox needs it to be.

When you create the VPS based on the BlueOnyx OS template, the settings 
outlined below must be used. I never used Proxmox, so I don't know what 
options it shows in its GUI or how they are named exactly. Instead I refer to 
the options as OpenVZ calls them:

- Use "venet" instead of "eth" style network devices.
- Second level disk quota for the VPS must be enabled.
- Don't set the admin/root password of the VPS to anything else but "blueonyx" 
until you're done with the web based initial setup.

Additionally: Due to all the different setup scripts that run through first 
time around that the VPS boots, it may take a moment until you can login. Best 
practice is to let the VPS boot up entirely and then restart it before you 
start to use it. That way all the constructors can run and can reconfigure the 
system for usage. The reboot before you start using the VPS makes sure that 
all services come up properly after the initial reconfiguration that happened 
during the first boot.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber