Vnx-rootfslxcdebian

How to create a LXC Debian root filesystem for VNX

DRAFT, DRAFT, DRAFT...not finished yet

Basic installation

Follow this procedure to create a LXC Debian based root filesystem for VNX. The procedure has been tested creating a Debian Squeeze (6) over an Ubuntu 13.10 host.

• Create the rootfs with:

lxc-create -t debian -n vnx_rootfs_lxc_debian

Note1: The default username/password is root/root.
Note2: use linux32 command to create a 32 bits image from a 64 bits machine, that is:

linux32 lxc-create -t debian -n vnx_rootfs_lxc_debian

Note3: the debian lxc template distributed with ubuntu creates a Debian 6 (squeeze) image. To create a Debian 7 (Wheezy) image you have to download a template, for example, following the procedure described here.

wget  https://gist.github.com/tpokorra/8488744/raw/f1d050704e8cc8c70dd956eb18e6374d70f8ecf6/lxc-debian-wheezy
mv lxc-debian-wheezy /usr/share/lxc/templates/lxc-debian-wheezy
chmod a+x /usr/share/lxc/templates/lxc-debian-wheezy
lxc-create -t debian-wheezy -n vnx_rootfs_lxc_debian

• Move the rootfs to VNX filesystems directory:

mv /var/lib/lxc/vnx_rootfs_lxc_debian/ /usr/share/vnx/filesystems/

• Edit the rootfs configuration file (/usr/share/vnx/filesystems/vnx_rootfs_lxc_debian/config) to reflect the directory change:

lxc.rootfs = /usr/share/vnx/filesystems/vnx_rootfs_lxc_debian/rootfs
lxc.mount  = /usr/share/vnx/filesystems/vnx_rootfs_lxc_debian/fstab

• Start the new rootfs to configure it and install new software:

lxc-start -n vnx -f /usr/share/vnx/filesystems/vnx_rootfs_lxc_debian/config

• Once the VM has started, make login (root/root) and:
• Add VNX user and change the passwords:

adduser vnx
adduser vnx sudo
passwd root

• Update the system:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

• And install additional software, for example (list taken from here):

apt-get --no-install-recommends install -y adduser apt-utils iproute netbase sudo iputils-ping iptables rsyslog
apt-get install --no-install-recommends openssh-blacklist openssh-blacklist-extra openssh-server 
apt-get install net-tools ifupdown sockstat
apt-get install wget less lsof screen apt-utils nano telnet inetutils-ping psmisc
apt-get install aptsh traceroute nmap apache2 wget tcpdump vim

• Change VM name in hosts and hostname files:

vi /etc/hosts         # change name to vnx
vi /etc/hostname      #     "

• Important: edit /etc/network/interfaces and coment "inet dhcp" lines to avoid delays at startup.
• Stop the VM with:

halt

• Optionally, create a short link to the rootfs:

cd /usr/share/vnx/filesystems
ln -s vnx_rootfs_lxc_ubuntu-13.10 rootfs_lxc