[Users] Re: lvm and openvz

[David Brown]

On 29/03/2012 11:04, Kir Kolyshkin wrote:
> On 03/28/2012 11:49 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>
>> I /really/ wish the openvz developers would move beyond kernel
>> 2.6.32 - kernal 2.6.33 introduced snapshot merging to LVM which
>> would play wonderfully with this setup.
>
> I'm not sure why people think that RHEL6 kernel is pure 2.6.32. It is
>  definitely not!
>
> For snapshot merging, I am not an expert here but googling for 'rhel6
>  lvm snapshot merging' gave me this:
>
> http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/rhel6/rhel_6_lvm_admin/rhel_6_lvm_snapshot_merge.html
>
>
>
> and this:
>
> https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/solutions/58510
>
> Both articles suggest RHEL6 kernel supports LVM snapshot merging, and
> so should OpenVZ RHEL6-based kernel.
>
> PS If you are using non-rhel6 openvz kernel, it's definitely time to
>  switch, and lots of reasons to do that besides LVM snapshot merging.
> Notable things are vswap, ploop, stability...
>
> Kir.

I am using a non-rhel6 openvz kernel because I don't use RHEL - I use 
Debian on my servers.  Are you suggesting that I should specifically use 
the RHEL6 openvz kernel even though I use Debian?  That's something I 
haven't thought of trying, but if it is the recommendation of the OpenVZ 
developers, then I will give it a shot.

More generally, I would hope that one day OpenVZ will change over to 
following the current kernel (or perhaps the current long-term support 
kernels) - there has been a lot of development since 2.6.32, not all of 
which gets backported by Red Hat.  I'd expect that a lot of OpenVZ code 
can be merged with or replaced by the container support in later 
kernels.  I also think that if OpenVZ doesn't catch up, then people will 
migrate to other solutions such as Linux VServer or LXC (I know I 
considered it for the last server I configured).

Of course, I fully appreciate that something like that takes a lot of 
effort, and that means time, money, people to do the work, testing, 
etc., etc.  But one can still hope!

David