2.3. Installing with CLI Management¶

2.3.4.1. Creating Bonded and Teamed Connections¶

Bonded and teamed connections offer increased throughput beyond the capabilities of a single network card as well as improved redundancy.

During installation, you can configure bonding on the NETWORK & HOSTNAME screen as described below. Teaming can be configured in a similar way after choosing Team on step 1.

1. To add a new bonded connection, click the plus button in the bottom, select Bond from the drop-down list, and click Add.

   

2. In the Editing Bond connection… window, set the following parameters:

   1. Mode to XOR.

   2. Link Monitoring to MII (recommended).

   3. Monitoring frequency, Link up delay, and Link down delay to 300.

   

   Note

   It is also recommended to manually set xmit_hash_policy to layer3+4 after the installation as detailed in Setting Up Network Bonding. For more information on network bonding, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide and Linux Ethernet Bonding Driver HOWTO.

3. In the Bonded connections section on the Bond tab, click Add.

4. In the Choose a Connection Type window, select Ethernet from the in the drop-down list, and click Create.

   

5. In the Editing bond slave… window, select a network interface to bond from the Device drop-down list.

   

6. Configure other parameters if required and click Save.

7. Repeat steps 3 to 7 for each network interface you need to add to the bonded connection.

8. Configure other parameters if required and click Save.

The connection will appear in the list on the NETWORK & HOSTNAME screen.

2.3.4.2. Creating VLAN Adapters¶

While installing Virtuozzo Hybrid Server, you can also create virtual local area network (VLAN) adapters on the basis of physical adapters on the NETWORK & HOSTNAME screen as described below.

1. To add a new VLAN adapter, click the plus button in the bottom, select VLAN from the drop-down list, and click Add.

   

2. In the Editing VLAN connection… window:

   1. Select a physical adapter the VLAN adapter will be based on from the Parent interface drop-down list.

   2. Specify a VLAN adapter identifier in the VLAN ID field. The value must be in the 1-4094 range.

   

3. Configure other parameters if required and click Save.

The VLAN adapter will appear in the list on the NETWORK & HOSTNAME screen.

2.3.6.1. Creating a New Virtuozzo Storage Cluster¶

If you choose to create a new Virtuozzo Storage cluster, you will need to provide the cluster name and password and select one or more roles for the server.

First, in the Name field, specify a name for the cluster that will uniquely identify it among other clusters in your network. A cluster name must consist of the characters a-z, A-Z, 0-9, minus (-), underscore (_), and must not be longer than 63 characters.

Next, click Configure security next to the Name field and specify a password for your cluster. The password must be at least 8 characters long. It is encrypted and saved to the file /etc/vstorage/clusters/<cluster_name>/auth_digest.key on the server.

Next, choose the cluster role(s) for your server. See Virtuozzo Storage Server Roles. When you create a new Virtuozzo Storage cluster, the Metadata Server Role option is selected by default.

Finally, select an IP address through which Virtuozzo Storage services on this node will communicate with similar services on other cluster nodes. The network interface that has the IP address will be added to firewall’s trusted zone and all ports will be open for it. It is recommended to keep this interface’s network internal and separated from other networks. If the node has a single network interface, avoid opening all ports on it by creating a VLAN for internal traffic.

2.3.6.2. Joining an Existing Virtuozzo Storage Cluster¶

If you choose to join an existing Virtuozzo Storage cluster, you will need to provide the cluster name and password and select one or more roles for your server.

First, in the Name field, specify a name of the cluster to join.

Next, click Configure security next to the Name field and specify a password for your cluster.

Next, choose the role(s) for your server. See Virtuozzo Storage Server Roles.

Finally, select an IP address through which Virtuozzo Storage services on this node will communicate with similar services on other cluster nodes. The network interface that has the IP address will be added to firewall’s trusted zone and all ports will be open for it. It is recommended to keep this interface’s network internal and separated from other networks. If the node has a single network interface, avoid opening all ports on it by creating a VLAN for internal traffic.

2.3.6.3. Virtuozzo Storage Server Roles¶

Each Virtuozzo Hybrid Server server can have one, some, or all of the following roles.

• Metadata Server Role. MDS servers are an essential part of any Virtuozzo Storage cluster. They store metadata about chunk servers and control how files keeping the contents of virtual machines and containers are split into chunks and where these chunks are located.

  

  As a static IP address is required for an MDS server, the IP address detected by the installation program is specified in the corresponding field by default. If multiple IP addresses are available, you need to to choose one to assign to the MDS server. In some cases, you may need to enter a valid IP address manually.

  Note

  MDS servers require static IP addresses. If you are using DHCP, map an IP address to the MAC address of the MDS server.

• Chunk Server Role. Chunk servers (CS) store the contents of virtual machines and containers in the form of fixed-size chunks and provide access to these chunks. All data chunks are replicated and the replicas are kept on different chunk servers for high data availability. If one of the chunk servers goes down, other chunk servers continue providing the replicas of data chunks that were stored on the failed server.

  

  Warning

  Virtuozzo Storage has redundancy built in, so you should avoid running Virtuozzo Storage on redundant types of RAID like 1, 5, or 6 over local storage. In this case, a single write operation may affect a significant number of HDDs resulting in very poor performance. For example, for 3 Virtuozzo Storage replicas and RAID5 on servers with 5 HDDs each, a single write operation may result in 15 I/O operations. For recommendations on optimal local storage configurations, consult the Virtuozzo Storage Administrator’s Guide.

  By default, the installer does the following:

  • If your server has several disk drives, the installer will automatically configure each disk drive except system to act as a separate chunk server.

  • If one or more SSD drives are available on the server, they will be set up to store chunk server write journals (one journal per chunk server). By using SSD drives for write journaling, you can boost the performance of write operations in the cluster by up to two or more times. For more information on using SSD drives, consult Assigning Disk Roles Manually. If you need to disable this setting, click Configure under the chunk server role checkbox and clear the checkbox Enable the use of SSD drives for the CS journal.

    

    Note

    If one or more SSDs are not detected automatically, find out their device names (for example, invoke the console by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 and run lsblk -d -o name,rota, zeroes in the ROTA column will indicate non-rotational drives, i.e. SSDs), reboot to the installer welcome screen, and follow instructions in Enabling Forced Detection of SSDs.

• Client Server Role. Clients are computers with Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 7 from where you run virtual machines and containers stored in your Virtuozzo Storage cluster.

  

  By default, the installer does the following:

  • Enables high availability support for the client and for all virtual machines and containers you will create on it. With high availability turned on, if the client fails, all virtual machines and containers hosted on it will be automatically moved to a healthy server. For detailed information on high availability, consult Managing High Availability Clusters.

  • If one or more SSD drives are available on the server, the installer configures them to store a local cache of frequently accessed data. By having a local cache on an SSD drive, you can increase the overall cluster performance by up to 10 and more times. For more information on using SSD drives, consult Assigning Disk Roles Manually.

    Note

    If one or more SSDs are not detected automatically, find out their drive letters (for example, invoke the console by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 and run lsblk -d -o name,rota, zeroes in the ROTA column will indicate non-rotational drives, i.e. SSDs), reboot to the installer welcome screen, and follow instructions in Enabling Forced Detection of SSDs.

  To change either of these settings, click Configure under the client role checkbox and set the corresponding checkboxes in the client settings window.

  

2.3.8.1. Activating a License¶

To activate a Virtuozzo Hybrid Server license, click LICENSE KEY, enter a key, and click Done.

If you do not have a license, you can fill in the Free Trial Request form.

Alternatively, you can activate a license with the vzlicload command after the installation is complete. For more details, see Understanding Licensing.

2.3.8.2. Configuring ReadyKernel¶

With automatic updating enabled by default, ReadyKernel will check for new patches daily at 12:00 server time. If a patch is available, ReadyKernel will download, install, and load it for the current kernel. For more details, see Updating the Kernel with ReadyKernel.

In previous Virtuozzo Hybrid Server versions, you can turn off the option of automatic update of Virtuozzo ReadyKernel patches while installing Virtuozzo Hybrid Server. In the latest versions, you can switch it off after installing Virtuozzo Hybrid Server. To do this, click READYKERNEL, clear the ReadyKernel automatic update checkbox, and click Done.

2.3.8.3. Completing Installation¶

Once the installation is complete, click Reboot to restart the server.

After restart, you will see the login prompt as well as the server IP address and hostname that you can use to connect to the server remotely.

To manage virtual machines and containers on the Virtuozzo Hybrid Server server, you will need to log in as the root user. After you do so, you will see a shell prompt and can start creating and managing your virtual machines and containers. For quick-start instructions, run man afterboot. More detailed information is provided in the Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 7 User’s Guide.