Common OpenVZ Commands for System Administrators

 

OpenVZ is a container-based virtualization technology for Linux and it is free open source software, available under GNU GPL. OpenVZ creates isolated, multiple secure Linux on a single physical server. Each container is also known as VPSs (Virtual Private Servers) and it performs and executes exactly like a standalone server. a container can be start/stop/rebooted independently and have root access, users, IP addresses, memory, processes, files, applications, system libraries and configuration files. These containers do not have individual kernels. This uses a single patched Linux kernel and it supports only Linux OSs.

In this tutorial, I will show you basic OpenVZ commands to manage containers.

 

To list all running containers.

vzlist

Here is the sample output.

[root@openvz02 ~]# vzlist

CTID      NPROC STATUS    IP_ADDR         HOSTNAME

28387         99 running   162.00.00.01  vps.example.com

37743         49 running   162.00.00.02   srv.example.org

 

To list all running and stopped containers.

vzlist -a

Sample output:

root@openvz02 ~]# vzlist -a

CTID      NPROC STATUS    IP_ADDR         HOSTNAME

28272          – stopped   162.00.00.05   exampledomain.org

28387        104 running   162.00.00.01   vps.example.com

37743         49 running   162.00.00.02   srv.example.org

 

To start a container.

vzctl start CTID

example:

vzctl start 141

 

To stop container.

vzctl stop CTID

example:

vzctl stop 141

 

To restart container

vzctl restart CTID

example:

vzctl restart 141

 

Logging into the container from node.

vzctl enter CTID

example:

vzctl enter 141

 

To delete a container.

vzctl destroy CTID

example:

vzctl destroy 141

 

To suspend a container.

vzctl suspend CTID

example:

vzctl suspend 141

 

To set a hostname for a container.

vzctl set CTID –hostname new_hostname –save

example:

vzctl set 141 –hostname server.example.com –save

 

To add a new IP to a container.

vzctl set CTID –ipadd xx.xx.xx.xx –save

 

To delete an IP from container.

vzctl set CTID –ipdel xx.xx.xx.xx –save

 

To reset the root password of a container.

vzctl set CTID –userpasswd root:new_password –save

 

To add a new nameserver IPs to VPS

vzctl set CTID –nameserver xx.xx.xx.xx –save

 

To execute a command from the node.

vzctl exec CTID command

example:

vzctl exec 141 ls /root

 

To check resource usage of the container.

vzcalc -v CTID

 

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