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#1 2014-01-23 23:34:30

thanil
Member
Registered: 2013-01-18
Posts: 11

[resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

Hi,

I've been running arch on a VPS for years now, never had any serious problems until this:

When I updated systemd from 204-3 to 208-10, the VPS stopped booting.
I was able to downgrade systemd and systemd-sysvcompat to 204-3 and the VPS rebooted normally.
This is starting to become a problem because since I upgraded dbus (1.6.18-1 -> 1.6.18-3), my syslog is empty.
On top of that I've had to keep libgcrypt <= 1.5.3-1 because otherwise systemd 204 doesn't work any more.
I would like to fix this before any more problems pile up.

My VPS provider uses OpenVZ, with the latest RHEl6 build ( 2.6.32-042stab084.17 ) via ksplice/uptrack.

The vzctl logs from my provider do not say anything helpful, and like I was describing,
my syslogs have been empty for a while so nothing in there either...

Anyone have any insight on what is going on?

Thanks,
Thanil

Last edited by thanil (2014-01-24 19:56:28)

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#2 2014-01-24 02:09:15

falconindy
Developer
From: New York, USA
Registered: 2009-10-22
Posts: 4,111
Website

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

You're only going to run into problems running arch userspace on a kernel that old. There's more to come in the Near Future™ that will make such aging kernels even more incompatible with recent userspace.

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#3 2014-01-24 02:17:11

thanil
Member
Registered: 2013-01-18
Posts: 11

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

Hi falconindy and thanks for the reply,

Since my VPS provider doesn't plan to update their kernel, what do you recommend I do? Is there any hope in using arch on VPS?

Thanil

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#4 2014-01-24 05:58:02

x33a
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2009-08-15
Posts: 4,587

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

If your VPS provides doesn't plan to update their kernel, then you should either switch to a different and more stable distro such as Debian, or change your VPS provider.

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#5 2014-01-24 08:53:45

thanil
Member
Registered: 2013-01-18
Posts: 11

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

I understand.

How recent should their kernel be to support arch? Is there a minimum supported version?

Thanks,
Thanil

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#6 2014-01-24 17:28:15

x33a
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2009-08-15
Posts: 4,587

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

Well, even the lts kernel in Arch is from the 3.10 series, so I think that should be a reasonable version. But I am merely speculating, falconindy would be able to answer this better.

Also, if a VPS provider lets you load custom kernels, this question becomes pointless.

Last edited by x33a (2014-01-24 17:56:29)

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#7 2014-01-24 19:03:30

falconindy
Developer
From: New York, USA
Registered: 2009-10-22
Posts: 4,111
Website

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

I don't know the exact kernel version that require. But just as an example, the previous linux-lts kernel (3.0.y) began to silently break in strange ways probably almost a year ago. I suspect that our current LTS may be incompatible with Arch userspace by the end of 2014, but this will likely be a more noticeable breakage.

I can't really recommend running anything other than the current kernel in [core].

Last edited by falconindy (2014-01-24 19:05:06)

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#8 2014-01-24 19:17:50

thanil
Member
Registered: 2013-01-18
Posts: 11

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

Thanks for the replies. What I'm getting from this is that since a lot of virtualization environments run on old kernels (OpenVZ is based on RHEL 6 for example) there is no hope for running Arch on a VPS anymore? I'll go and warn people on the wiki page then. I think we can mark this topic as closed.

That's sad, I really enjoyed having Arch on all my servers.

Regards,
Thanil

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#9 2014-01-24 19:19:28

Scimmia
Fellow
Registered: 2012-09-01
Posts: 11,461

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

Sure there is, just not on OpenVZ. Get away from a container based setup to one that provides an actual virtual machine and lets you load your own kernel and you'll be fine.

Last edited by Scimmia (2014-01-24 19:44:06)

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#10 2014-01-24 19:48:48

jasonwryan
Anarchist
From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
Website

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

Please don't use closed; it denotes a locked thread. Use Resolved instead (you do have an answer, even if it is not the one you initially hoped for).


Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

Registered Linux User #482438

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#11 2014-01-24 19:57:11

thanil
Member
Registered: 2013-01-18
Posts: 11

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

Sorry about that, I fixed it.

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#12 2014-01-25 23:42:01

Lone_Wolf
Member
From: Netherlands, Europe
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 11,866

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

you might want to check out linode.com.

They do list Arch Linux 2013.06 as the current version of arch they support for install, but look at their kernel page here :
https://www.linode.com/kernels/


Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.


(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

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#13 2014-04-03 23:37:58

thanil
Member
Registered: 2013-01-18
Posts: 11

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

In case anyone else wants to keep using Arch Linux on an OpenVZ VPS (or another container that may be running older kernels), here is the list of packages that you need to keep on old versions:

systemd-204-3
systemd-sysvcompat-204-3
libgcrypt-1.5.3-1
dbus-1.6.18-3
libdbus-1.6.18-3

My main problem was that systemd > 204 did not boot on my VPS and the other packages can't handle such an old version of systemd any more. There may be more recent versions of these that still work and I know this isn't ideal so don't attempt this unless you really want this unstable setup. If anyone has managed to run this setup successfully without having to keep those outdated versions around let me know.

Also I do know that switching to a VM-based provider (instead of container-based) would solve this but I really like my current provider and they only support OpenVZ.

Thanil

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#14 2014-04-10 16:18:52

davispuh
Member
From: Latvia
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 9

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

Currently on latest stable OpenVZ kernel 2.6.32-042stab085.20 Arch Linux works fine, only you can't use systemd-212 as it uses kernel features which aren't available in OpenVZ kernel.
So upgrade systemd to latest systemd 211 and then blacklist it with IgnorePkg in /etc/pacman.conf

All other packages can be updated to latest versions.

libsystemd 212-2
systemd 211-1
systemd-sysvcompat 212-2
libgcrypt 1.6.1-1
dbus 1.8.0-1
dbus-glib 0.102-1
libdbus 1.8.0-1


EDIT: BTW I reported this bug to OpenVZ - systemd 212 doesn't work because of missing kernel features

Last edited by davispuh (2014-04-10 16:39:23)

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#15 2014-04-11 01:36:02

thanil
Member
Registered: 2013-01-18
Posts: 11

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

Hi davispuh,

Thanks for the reply! I tried the package versions you recommended but I get the same error I've had since systemd-205. I tried calling systemd manually but I get the following:

# init --log-level=debug
systemd 211 running in user mode for user 0/root. (+PAM -LIBWRAP -AUDIT -SELINUX -IMA -SYSVINIT +LIBCRYPTSETUP +GCRYPT +ACL +XZ +SECCOMP -APPARMOR)
Failed to make us a subreaper: Invalid argument
Perhaps the kernel version is too old (< 3.4?)
Using cgroup controller name=systemd. File system hierarchy is at /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd.
Failed to create root cgroup hierarchy: Invalid argument
Failed to allocate manager object: Invalid argument

Do you have any idea how to solve this? My VPS is running the latest RHEL6 OpenVZ kernel.

Thanks!
Thanil

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#16 2014-04-11 18:41:29

Roukoswarf
Member
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: 2012-10-04
Posts: 8
Website

Re: [resolved - no solution exists] systemd upgrade doesn't boot on OpenVZ

@davispuh good one reporting the bug, i didnt manage to sit down long enough to isolate the error, CC'd myself to it.

The moment this is fixed, I'm going to make another Arch OpenVZ image for openvz.org, been quite a while since I've seen a need in updating the image, but making one while on the new kernel will give me a chance to ensure there is no other issues with new systemd features.

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