[SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

awayand · 2010-01-08 22:52:43

Hello again,

I am trying to get a small arch installation working on a VPS. They are using openVZ and I installed the provided arch 0.8 image without any problems. However, upgrading to the latest arch was rather difficult. I had to jump through some hoops to get pacman updated and to launch a complete upgrade. This upgrade went through fine, but upon reboot (if one can call it that, being an openVZ image...), I was only able to access the console, but not the actual VPS slice. The guys over at "...." (for the spam paranoid, I left out the VPS provider) have been very helpful so far troubleshooting, but they can't seem to figure it out, either. They say that the logs on their openVZ host doesn't give any errors, and I can log into the console. However, I do get a network connection denied error when trying to ssh to my VPS slice, which leads me to think that somehow sshd couldn't start up. I have tried editing hosts.allow, enabling debugging in sshd (but no logs are created), reinstalling openssh, to no avail. Since I am kind of blind it being a VPS slice (dmesg won't return anything, trying to run sshd from the console doesn't lead to anything, I assume it's an openVZ-console-thing limiting processes to the absolute minimum?), I am at a loss for options to troubleshoot. Does anyone else have an idea on how to go about getting arch to work?

I am asking in this forum as my hosting provider doesn't seem to get ahead either. I quote:

"Hey, as far as we can tell their is multiple large issues with the
newest release of Arch in OpenVZ. No one else is offering the newest
release so we are pretty sure this is effecting everyone. I'm going to
keep a look out for a new Arch template and we will put a post on the
blog when we find one."

Here are some VPS details for the curious, gotten from the VPS console:

[root@arch /]# uname -a
Linux arch 2.6.18-164.2.1.el5.028stab066.10 #1 SMP Sat Dec 12 18:52:53 MSK 2009 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
[root@arch /]# ps aux
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1 0.0 0.4 3816 624 ? Ss 17:48 0:00 init [3]
root 1412 0.0 0.6 8412 896 ttyp0 R+ 23:50 0:00 ps aux
root 20037 0.0 0.3 3800 444 ? Ss 17:48 0:00 /sbin/minilogd
root 20133 0.0 0.4 5896 600 ? S 17:48 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond
root 31856 0.0 0.3 11204 448 ? Rs 23:49 0:00 vzctl: ttyp0
root 31857 0.0 1.3 13516 1812 ttyp0 Ss 23:49 0:00 -bash
[root@arch /]# vmstat
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa
0 0 0 127360 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 124 0 0 100 0

Thanks in advance for your help!

PS: If someone is eager to poke around, message me and I will see what I can do to give you my root access password... (can you tell I am desperate? I just don't want to go back to debian just yet)

Last edited by awayand (2010-02-08 21:54:09)

mikesd · 2010-01-08 23:00:42

OpenVZ uses a fairly old kernel, 2.6.18. If you have upgraded Arch but it is still running on this kernel this may cause issues. I'm not sure what the minimum kernel is for Arch. You may want to check this out.

What happens when you try to restart sshd? Is there an error message?

Last edited by mikesd (2010-01-08 23:05:10)

bijoux · 2010-02-06 07:46:44

I too have Arch running on an OpenVZ VPS and I know exactly what you are talking about. With much work (emphasis on much), I have managed to get it pretty stable; running lighty, bind, squid, openvpn and ssh (this is also my torrentbox so it has rtorrent as well). I pretty much experienced the same problem you did when I upgraded and I believe the root of the problem is the older kernel; things are just incompatible, with Arch being a rolling-release and all. The key is to grab (older) packages that are compatible with other packages, libraries and of course the kernel itself.

Now to troubleshoot, you say you have console access? Start the ssh daemon, if it fails, check the logs and post it here. We'll go from there.

Last edited by bijoux (2010-02-06 07:49:43)

awayand · 2010-02-07 20:52:35

I switched temporarily to Debian 5 but I'd love to take you up on the offer to help me.

I have requested a reinstall of the openVZ arch0.8 64bit image at my current provider, it may take overnight and I will post the results tomorrow from a fresh, clean install.

Thanks again!

wonder · 2010-02-07 20:56:04

i did make a new template and submitted to openvz some days ago. so tell the admin to get it from openvz website

awayand · 2010-02-07 21:35:12

nice. will do!

awayand · 2010-02-07 21:42:28

have done.

awayand · 2010-02-07 22:38:30

Here's the response from my provider:

"Definitely! We had been waiting for a new Arch image.
I'm adding it now, it should be available within the hour.
Thanks for the link!"

yay!

wonder · 2010-02-07 22:44:56

hope that i did a great job and hope that i'll receive feedback.

awayand · 2010-02-08 20:58:10

I couldn't believe it - but they actually did add both 32 and 64 bit images of the 2010 images to their repository. I haven launched a reinstall as we speak. will tell you tomorrow if it worked!

awayand · 2010-02-08 21:47:51

well, I just tried it out, and it works like a *CHARM*. You are the best thanks a million! (I installed the 32bit version)

wonder · 2010-02-08 21:55:00

awayand wrote:

well, I just tried it out, and it works like a *CHARM*. You are the best thanks a million! (I installed the 32bit version)

nice. now i only have that my two companies where i have and account to pick it up . btw what's the link to this company? maybe in the future i'll be a customer.

awayand · 2010-02-08 22:21:44

glad you asked.

I am using the tinyvps service (under "Sites" here: http://kerplunchosting.com/ It's a cheap solution to have a small box out there to help me out when I need an island. I think I paid 5 bucks with a coupon code, I was looking for the site referring to it for you, but I couldn't find it anymore, sorry.

Other than that, I also have a subscription at ovh, here: http://www.kimsufi.co.uk, they are out there in several different countries, the cheapest one would be http://kemsirve.es, but it's all the same thing actually. This time, it's not a vps, but actually a real server, plus they don't screw you over on storage - you actually get the full hard drive. They are an excellent provider. Only downside is that for me, it's relatively expensive as I don't really need that much horsepower at the moment, but I sure will need the storage for offline backup soon.

Hope I wasn't spamming.

EDIT: I forgot to say that ovh/kimsufi has had arch added to their repo back in December, (as I said, not a vps, but nevertheless props for adding arch) which is what was the final straw that made me get a subscription with them (3 months for now), otherwise if tinyvps had worked, I would have probably stayed with them for a while until actually needed the storage.

Last edited by awayand (2010-02-08 22:23:40)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-01-08 22:52:43

[SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#2 2010-01-08 23:00:42

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#3 2010-02-06 07:46:44

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#4 2010-02-07 20:52:35

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#5 2010-02-07 20:56:04

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#6 2010-02-07 21:35:12

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#7 2010-02-07 21:42:28

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#8 2010-02-07 22:38:30

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#9 2010-02-07 22:44:56

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#10 2010-02-08 20:58:10

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#11 2010-02-08 21:47:51

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#12 2010-02-08 21:55:00

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

#13 2010-02-08 22:21:44

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux and OpenVZ

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