[BlueOnyx:09819] Re: Aventurine with NAS

[Michael Stauber]

Hi Ken,

> Is it possible to have Aventurine from a NAS?

That depends on the NAS, Ken. If your server can boot the OS off the NAS, then 
the OS install should take care of that.

If not, then you can simply install the OS onto the server's hard disks the 
usual way, but then "offload" the /vz directory to a share that you mount from 
the NAS. That way you'd have a clean separation between having the OS 
installed on the onboard HDs and having all the data relevant to the actual 
VPS's on the NAS.

So after an regular install of the OS onto the internal hard disks of the 
server you'd do this:

Mount the NAS under directory name of your choosing, like "/vznew".

Next make a copy of /vz into /vznew. If there are running VPS's on the box, 
stop them first - of course (/etc/init.d/vz stop).

Then unmount /vz and /vznew. 

Then remove the now empty /vz directory and rename /vznew to /vz.

Finally edit /etc/fstab and change the line where it auto-mounts /vz to make 
the OS auto-mount the file area from the NAS during the next reboot.

Both the OpenVZ config files and the file areas of the VPS's are stored under 
/vz, so all that stuff will then reside on the NAS.

The large partition on the servers own hard disks that used to be used as /vz 
could then be used to store the local backups - provided it is large enough. 
Or you could remove that partition and resize another partition to use that 
space instead. Because depending on how much it is it may be a shame to leave 
it unused <shrug>.

I'm working on an enhancement for 6106R that will mounting an alternate /vz a 
bit easier from the GUI. That also includes adding ISCSI support for that 
purpose.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber