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An OS Template is what OpenVZ uses as install media so you may install a Linux distribution into a container... since you cannot use a traditional CD-ROM / DVD nor .iso disk image. An OS Template is a .tar.gz file that represents a somewhat stripped down version of an installed Linux distribution as you would find it installed on a disk filesystem. So, if you want to create a CentOS 5.2 i386 container, you need to find an CentOS 5.2 i386 OS Template.

There are a number of recipes on the OpenVZ wiki for building OS Templates for various Linux distributions but the general process takes several steps and is quite a bit of work. Any tool that can simplify the creation (and updating) of an OS Template is a welcome addition.

Standard practice for most proprietary software vendors is to say nothing until an issue finds its way into the press somehow... and then only respond with the minimal amount of information possible... usually denying everything until it can no longer be denied. That CERTAINLY WAS NOT the case with Red Hat / Fedora. They were out early with information... so early it was incomplete... and they did it of their own accord rather than as a mandatory response to some third party.

Greg Kurtzer from Infiscale stopped by the booth to ask how OpenVZ could potentially be used with his product to improve High Availability. Before starting Infiscale, Greg was the founder of the Caos Foundation which eventually lead to the development of CentOS. I talked to Greg about Infiscale's solutions and how they compared to Rocks Clusters.

No one showed up to man the Debian booth which was actually one booth over from us. I have no idea why... although there was a hand written sign that said many of the Debian folks were in Argentina at some Debian specific conference. Ok?!?

Oddly enough no one showed up to man the Gentoo booth either. It was in the next isle over from us. There wasn't any explanation as to why their booth was empty. Eventually someone took the Gentoo sign down.

This year the show seems a little smaller although it is hard to know for sure without comparing numbers (which I don't have handy). My only point of reference being the exhibit floor which appears to have fewer exhibitors, wider isles... and this year there is an "Installfest" section that takes up a bit of room... that makes one wonder if they decided to add it to eliminate a big chunk of empty space.

OpenVZ is operating system-level virtualization based on a modified Linux kernel that allows a physical server to run multiple isolated instances known as containers, virtual private servers (VPS), or virtual environments (VE). The preferred term these days is container. Containers are sometimes compared to chroot or jail type environments but containers are really much better in terms of isolation, security, functionality, and resource management.

The most obvious change from last year was that there weren't any repeated presentations and each time slot was original yielding more presentations than last year. Another big change is that two of the presentation rooms (Haskel 108 and 103) had a video camera in them with live streaming and archiving of the content. ustream.tv was responsible for the streaming and archiving and some folks from the BTC did all of the camera work.

While the ability to create a LiveUSB stick from the LiveCD media has been a feature of Fedora for a while, a new feature in Fedora 9 is the ability to have persitant data. I originally thought that the persistant data feature was only for user data but as it turns out it applies to the complete system... so not only can you store your documents... you can also install updates, new applications, create accounts, and save settings. There is nothing special you have to do... it works just like a hard drive would.

The Objective Observer wrote what appeared to be a logical argument from which he drew what he claims is a reasonable comparison... Open Source is like Terrorism. Riiiiight. Well, I decided to respectfully respond to his commentary with some specific examples of how his conclusions are inaccurate. I'm assuming he got hit with a lot of flames but I didn't want to add to it.

I recently attended a Linux Installfest and the primary distribution recommended by those heading up the event was Ubuntu. That's all well and good but during their Linux dog-and-pony-show a statement was made regarding Red Hat that struck me. I don't recall the exact wording that was used but it was something along the lines of... Red Hat used to be very popular but not anymore. I wasn't really offended by the statement nor do I completely disagree with it... but a lot remains to be said about the importance of Red Hat within the Linux community. Red Hat is certainly king in the "Enterprise" space with Novell a respectable second... but not everyone seems to be aware of just how much Red Hat contributes to the development of many projects and how they are a major mover in the progression of Linux.

Zimbra 5.0 GA came out today or was it yesterday / last year? After reading the release notes and doing a complete backup, I upgraded both my work and personal Zimbra servers. I have been using the Open Source edition of Zimbra for my work and personal email for... oh... something close to two years now and have been through a number of upgrades. They have always gone smoothly. Read the full article to see what is new in the 5.0 release as well as an overview of the upgrade process from the 4.5.10 release.

I use both Linux-VServer and OpenVZ at work for server virtualization and they both work fantastically. Since I've already done an interview with the head of the OpenVZ project, I thought it was time for an interview with the head of the Linux-VServer project. I ran across Herbert Pötzl on the Linux-VServer IRC channel (#vserver on irc.oftc.net) and he was kind enough to grant me this interview. Herbert is hereafter referred to by his IRC nick, Bertl.

Linuxfest Northwest has been an annual event since 1999 held at Bellingham Technical College in Bellingham Washington which is approximately 90 miles North of Seattle. To allow for the largest participation, it is held on a weekend. Linuxfest Northwest 2007 was held on April 28-29th and was attended by approximately 900 people.

Since I'm a Red Hat fan (which includes Fedora Core and CentOS), I'm aware of the complaints people have about "having to download multiple CDs" before they can start installing. In fact, the recently released CentOS 5 is 6 CDs (i386, or 7 CDs for x86_64). To counter those complaints, I thought I'd try a single CD install of the recently released CentOS 5 "Debian style" and then add everything in post-install. Join me if you will...

During the course of the article I will describe the basic design of XenExpress, its installation, installation and use of the Administrator Console client application, creation, monitoring and management of Xen virtual machines... and then I'll try to contrast how XenSource's product line stacks up to Xen as offered by Red Hat and clones.