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Things I should know about OpenVZ

UmairUmair Member
in General

Hi guys,

I have decided to go with OpenVZ as my virtulization after trying out KVM and playing with it for few days. Not doing an OpenVZ vs KVM debate here, I am sure there are more advantage to KVM but it's just not for me at this point. Plus it's my own setup and I know I don't really need that much.

So now, my question is what I should I know about OpenVZ ?? What setting you would recommend me??? Since this will be first time me doing visualization myself. I have managed servers, vps etc .. but never really used server to create vps before.

(Like http://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/37153/openvz-simfs-vs-ploop/) I should probably go with Simfs.
Any other thing to note down like that ^^^?

Just so you know, the server is for my own sites. With the ability to have isolation among my sites and also giving me room to test things out. (And learning as well) i.e. I am not into "hosting business" but I like to try and learn new things.

Thanks

«1

Comments

  • jarjar Member, Patron Provider
    edited January 2015

    Seen a few problems with ploop (likely had have external factors), never seen one with simfs. Take that as you will.

    Read the vzctl manual top to bottom. Always read vzctl release notes.

    Above all else, have fun.

    Thanked by 2Umair vimalware
  • netomxnetomx Moderator

    Use proxmox, easy

    Thanked by 1DalekOfSkaro
  • smansman Member
    edited January 2015

    Don't bother setting up LVM unless you are sure you need it. Just makes things needlessly complicated imho.

    Do set up SW RAID 1. HD's are cheap and it's fairly straight forward.

    Make your root (no need for separate root and boot partitions) partition big enough to store several kernels and kernel dumps. Also give yourself a nice big swap partition. Again, HD's are big and cheap so give yourself lots of room.

    A lot of instructions out there have been copied or handed down through the years from back when HD's weren't that big and are hopelessly outdated.

    Thanked by 1linuxthefish
  • UmairUmair Member

    @netomx said:
    Use proxmox, easy

    Well after reading up all the views, reviews and forum I have actually decided to go with Solus. (I personally played with SolusVM and Vrtualizor.com, as they were my top picks)

    PS. This topis is more about OpenVZ and less about panel.

  • smansman Member
    edited January 2015

    Can't go wrong with Solus. Proxmox is ok for development but I wouldn't use it for anything commercial. Especially hosting.

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • UmairUmair Member

    @sman said:
    Don't bother setting up LVM unless you are sure you need it. Just makes things needlessly complicated imho.

    Do set up SW RAID 1. HD's are cheap and it's fairly straight forward.

    Make your root (no need for separate root and boot partitions) partition big enough to store several kernels and kernel dumps. Also give yourself a nice big swap partition. Again, HD's are big and cheap so give yourself lots of room.

    A lot of instructions out there have been copied or handed down through the years from back when HD's weren't that big and are hopelessly outdated.

    Ohhh .. My server is pretty awesome. It has SSD in HW Raid 1. I have one important blog (high traffic) and few simple sites. So yeah, server is not an issue. :)

  • Shoaib_AShoaib_A Member

    If you do not need to run custom kernel on each guest(VPS) OpenVZ with simfs would be the best choice as OpenVZ has less overhead & simfs is much more stable & time tested as compared to ploop. Regarding control panel, SolusVM & Virtualizor both are good but I have seen that for last year or so virtualizor have become more efficient & offer more features than SolusVM. They also try to implement what their customers want. So I would personally prefer virtualizor but that is just my own opinion.

  • netomxnetomx Moderator

    sman said: Proxmox is ok for development

    He said he will not sell, that;s why I suggest Proxmox

  • UmairUmair Member

    Let's not get into "which panel is better" ... I tested both, both are pretty amazing. I am just going with Souls at this time.

    So, back to topic .. Which else I should consider / remember / tweak to get the best out of OpenVZ.
    (I do need stability and performance. Even though it's for my own stuff, I do have one important site on it which can not go down)

    @fametel said:
    If you do not need to run custom kernel on each guest(VPS) OpenVZ with simfs would be the best choice as OpenVZ has less overhead & simfs is much more stable & time tested as compared to ploop

    Duly noted. Anything else?

  • Shoaib_AShoaib_A Member
    edited January 2015

    OpenVZ does not support Windows & custom ISO. Containers(VPS) share host node's kernel. It also does not reserve memory & disk space allocated to a particular VPS so you can easily over-allocate resources without any worries if you are unsure about resource usage of each website or project.

  • UmairUmair Member

    Yup... I know that part. I just need Centos/Debian ... So I am all set there.
    I am asking for things like "openvz simfs vs ploop" ... I mean, I had no idea how that effects until two days ago...
    Any particular settings/config in Solus/OpenVZ to get the most out of my setup?

  • Shoaib_AShoaib_A Member

    Nope there are hardly any specific settings in SolusVM which can affect efficiency of your VPS servers.

  • smansman Member
    edited January 2015

    @fametel said:
    Nope there are hardly any specific settings in SolusVM which can affect efficiency of your VPS servers.

    Not in Solus but a few on OpenVZ. It's mostly idiot proof though.

    nf_conntrack is one but only for high traffic. Cannot disable this on the node if you want to do anything with iptables states on the node.

    https://bugzilla.openvz.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2755

  • UmairUmair Member

    Do we really need Swap space on main node??
    I mean if the system has enough RAM (64GB) and is only going to be used for 3/4 VMs, do we really need Swap on main node???

    I only have 300GB SSD but have enough RAM for my needs. So trying to remove swap (which is 64GB right now) and add the space back to /vz partition.

    Just wondering if there will be any issue...
    (or can I just go with 2GB Swap?)

    Thanks

  • century1stopcentury1stop Member
    edited January 2015

    Umair said: Do we really need Swap space on main node??

    swap is mandatory not optional. however, if there's adequate hardware resources, you can possibly minimize allocation and assign extra space to /vz

  • perennateperennate Member, Host Rep

    You don't need swap, why would it be "mandatory"? You can always add a swap file later if you find that processes are getting killed.

  • century1stopcentury1stop Member
    edited January 2015

    hmm I thought linux OSes require swap to work?

  • perennateperennate Member, Host Rep
    edited January 2015

    century1stop said: hmm I thought linux OSes require swap to work?

    No, it just saves some memory, swap is only helpful when you don't have enough RAM. When you have plenty of RAM, having small swap space can clear up some space for memory for buffers and filesystem caching (rarely used pages would be swapped out to disk), but not really big deal (60 GB cache for 300 GB SSD...).

    Edit: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq

    Thanked by 1century1stop
  • vijaivijai Member

    @Umair You run noobslab right? If you are the same Umair running noobslab, Hooray for your contribution to open source :)

    Thanked by 1Umair
  • UmairUmair Member

    Hello Guys,

    Need some help here. I have setup OpenVZ using SolusVM. So I created my 1st VPS and ran serverbear benchmark just to see how that will work. The VPS was created with default settings that Solus Suggested. (4CPU Cores, 1000 units etc)

    The main node is running E5-16500 CPU (6C/12HT)

    Now I was expecting serverbear scores to be 1/3rd of the main node. But those seems be to be just 1/2nd. On main node

    UnixBench (w/ all processors)   8019.1
UnixBench (w/ one processor)    2050.4

    In VPS

    UnixBench (w/ all processors)   4636.4
UnixBench (w/ one processor)    1809.6

    Welll this is fine by me. (I mean don't think that is an issue)

    All other results seems fine. But one thing is just way off.

    On main Node

    FIO
Read IOPS   72956.0
Read Bandwidth  291.8 MB/second
Write IOPS  21345.0
Write Bandwidth 85.3 MB/second

    With VPS

    FIO
Read IOPS   13086.0
Read Bandwidth  52.3 MB/second
Write IOPS  360669.0
Write Bandwidth 1 KB/second

    Is there some setting/tweak that I have not done?? Or the ServerBear benchmark will just not work properly with OpenVZ?? Or I am missing some setting in SolusVM??

    I mean, that read write bandwidth is way off ...

    Thanks for help.

  • UmairUmair Member

    Anyone ??

    I tried to run the FIO test directly on VPS but didn't see much of an issue...

  • wychwych Member

    @Umair, no need to bump again already.

    Have you any I/O Priorities set?

  • smansman Member
    edited February 2015

    Yes you should create a swap partition. The reason being....why not? HD's are big and cheap. Use them. If you are using SSD I would still create a small swap partition. I have not run into any myself but there are supposedly some things that will freak out if they do not see any swap.

    Yes you can create a swap file later on if you are not sure you need it...however, partition is better imho.

  • UmairUmair Member

    @wych said:
    Umair, no need to bump again already.

    Have you any I/O Priorities set?

    I/O Priority is set to 4 (their recommended value) .. Pretty much everything else is on default/recommended settings.

  • UmairUmair Member

    @sman said:
    Yes you should create a swap partition. The reason being....why not? HD's are big and cheap. Use them. If you are using SSD I would still create a small swap partition. I have not run into any myself but there are supposedly some things that will freak out if they do not see any swap. Yes you can create a swap file instead which gives you to option to add that later on if you are not sure you need it...however, partition is better.

    Ermmm ... That was already sorted :P
    Anyway, I think there is no need to have (Ram+2GB) swap space (as given in solusvm docs) if you enough RAM on the box. I have set 4GB swap with 10 swappiness on main node. So I am good.

  • smansman Member
    edited February 2015

    @Umair said:
    Anyway, I think there is no need to have (Ram+2GB) swap space (as given in solusvm docs) if you enough RAM on the box. I have set 4GB swap with 10 swappiness on main node. So I am good.

    That rule of thumb to make swap the same size as RAM or 2xRAM or whatever comes from back in the days when RAM was expensive and people rarely used more than maybe 2GB-4GB. Now a days I base it on HD size. For 1TB drives I just make it 10GB because it's a nice round number and almost nothing on a 1TB.

    Thanked by 1Umair
  • BuyAdsBuyAds Member

    Openvz can be oversold as hell.

  • smansman Member
    edited February 2015

    @BuyAds said:
    Openvz can be oversold as hell.

    Thank you peanut gallery for that obligatory post that you guys feel compelled to add to every OpenVZ discussion. Maybe you guys should just create a bot that goes around the web looking for the OVZ keywords and just posts that everywhere it finds them.

    Thanked by 2wych century1stop
  • BuyAdsBuyAds Member

    @sman said:
    Thank you peanut gallery for that obligatory post that you guys feel compelled to add to every OpenVZ discussion. Maybe you guys should just create a bot that goes around the web looking for the OVZ keywords and just posts that everywhere it finds them.

    huh? Am not talking about peanuts :)

  • TinyTunnel_TomTinyTunnel_Tom Member

    @BuyAds said:
    Openvz can be oversold as hell.

    So can XEN and KVM? Please google before posting

    Thanked by 5wych Shoaib_A Umair century1stop doughmanes
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