Arch Linux

pav02

Member

Registered: 2016-01-03

Posts: 4

[Closed] Installation of Archlinux on VPS

I am planning to install Archlinux on VPS for use as a webserver.

The provider states that
the method uses paravirtualization and virtio drivers, which enables the operating system to be aware that it is virtualized, and the disk and network card are can be directly accessed without emulation. But this method requires the installation of virtIO drivers. This allows to reach much higher I/O performance (according to the provider measurements, three times faster than IDE access).

Linux distributions that do not have any problem with virtio according to the provider, no need to do anything, are RHEL, Fedora, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE. FreeBSD does not support virtIO by default, the drivers must be installed manually.

I found only one guide, three years old and probably out-of-date https://bbs.archlinux.org/search.php?se … =539348323 dealing with installation on VPS.

Questions: Does current (Jan 2016) Archlinux install support virtIO (http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtio)?

The VPS CPU is 1 thread Xeon 1.80 GHz. Which Archlinux is better to install i686 or x86_64? Does it matter when it is a virtualized system?

Will current version of GRUB install successfully under virtualization?

Will the installed Archlinux boot normally when virtualized?

Thanks.

Update, closing: 

After four months of running Arch on VPS, as X86_64, there were just common issues, no show stoppers.

Last edited by pav02 (2016-06-22 20:54:52)

tom.ty89

Member

Registered: 2012-11-15

Posts: 897

Re: [Closed] Installation of Archlinux on VPS

All virtio drivers are in kernel. No idea what drivers you need to "install" for a Linux guest. mkinitcpio would normally have the necessary modules included in the initramfs. grub has no problem with it AFAIK.

For Windows drivers, you can get them here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Windows_Virtio_Drivers

Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: [Closed] Installation of Archlinux on VPS

Why not just use a VPS provider that offers Arch as one of their installed OS options?
This way you know everything's going to work and you can also rely on the support of your VPS host.

My preference is for Linode but I'm sure there are other hosts that will provide an Arch VPS.

Last edited by Slithery (2016-01-03 10:28:11)

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No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

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