Using FAI to set up VServers

VServer is a single-kernel virtualisation system for Linux, the home page for which is at http://www.linux-vserver.org/

VServer's feature set is being merged with competing implementations such as OpenVZ into the kernel in various places under the name of "containers" and "namespaces".

So far this documentation covers three ways to use FAI and VServers together.

• The first application of FAI to vserver is to install a VServer host that contains many VServer children. This technique is primarily useful when you are deploying systems that use VServer for extra security between services running on that host or other administrative convenience. A quick HOW-TO is at User:BrianShowalter/Using FAI to install Linux-vservers. This requires additions to your FAI profile.

• The second is that you already have a VServer host, but you want to set up a vserver or set of vservers using FAI. This approach can also be used to prototype the later stages of FAI without real extra machines - and it's also a lot faster than using a "heavy" virtual machine like VMWare or Xen. This is covered at Using FAI as a vserver build method, and requires a recent `util-vserver` and patched FAI.

• The third has already worked for a long time with standard FAI - use `vserver xxx build -m debootstrap` to build the vserver, then once it's up, use SoftUpdate to get it up do date with your profile. Installing a VServer guest with debootstrap and softupdate