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Upgrading HostSolutions.ro OpenVZ Templates To 16.04 / Jessie or Stretch
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Upgrading HostSolutions.ro OpenVZ Templates To 16.04 / Jessie or Stretch

edited June 2018 in Tutorials

I have seen that @cociu has once again posted his usual offers (which are superb value) and once again people are moaning that the templates are old. The templates ARE upgradeable to something more modern, but you need to put more effort into doing it than just typing do-release-upgrade or switching the versions used by APT.

These scripts are the result of a couple of days of work by me. I have lost about $24 creating them through losing the use of virtual machines, because, like others have experienced, if you upgrade the short way you will end up with a machine that won't boot or reinstall, and cociu won't help.

Before I continue:

  • HOSTSOLUTIONS OFFER NO SUPPORT FOR NEW DISTRIBUTIONS THAN THE TEMPLATES THAT THEIR CONTROL PANEL OFFERS.
  • THE FACT MY SCRIPT WORKS TODAY IS NO INDICATION IT WILL WORK IN THE FUTURE
  • I ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR CHOICE TO USE MY SCRIPTS TO UPGRADE YOUR TEMPLATES TO SOMETHING NEWER. But, they are offered in good faith.
  • IF YOU MESS UP YOUR SERVER EITHER WHEN RUNNING THE SCRIPT OR LATER ON, COCIU WILL NOT HELP YOU GET YOUR MACHINE BACK ONLINE IN A TIMELY MANNER. YOU MAY AS WELL KISS YOUR VPS GOODBYE UNLESS COCIU WANTS TO FIX IT.

However, if you can't resist the offer of a cheap VPS and can afford the financial and other risks involved with upgrading your server, I make available the following tutorials / scripts that allow you to upgrade the Debian Wheezy x86, x86_64 and Ubuntu 14.04 minimal templates to Jessie, Stretch or 16.04 as appropriate.

I have tested them on two different cociu VPS, and they work. You may see errors as they run, but they get resolved by the end of the script (with regards to init timeouts and missing files, this is because we have to ensure that certain files do not exist before upgrading otherwise the upgrade will fail).

PREREQUISITES

  • You are on a HostSolutions or other OpenVZ VPS
  • You have FRESHLY RE-INSTALLED one of the following templates:

    • debian-7.0-x86-minimal
    • debian-7.0-x86_64 (the script will turn this into an almost minimal template)
    • ubuntu-14.04-x86_64-minimal
  • The host node you are on is running kernel 2.6.32-48-pve (check by entering the command uname-r). If it isn't the tutorial / script may still work but I have not tested it.

  • You know how to use SSH

SCRIPTS

To make it easy, I offer you these one-line commands to use when upgrading a FRESHLY INSTALLED template. Simply cut and paste them into your SSH terminal.

From Debian Wheezy To Jessie

apt-get update;apt-get install -y wget ca-certificates;wget https://gist.github.com/lowendscripts/a69971a7a44d4919ce93a83254954489/raw/wheezy_to_jessie_installer.sh; bash wheezy_to_jessie_installer.sh

From Debian Wheezy to Stretch

apt-get update;apt-get install -y wget ca-certificates;wget https://gist.github.com/lowendscripts/9631c6070b241daefcc7d10a2fdb76a2/raw/wheezy_to_stretch_installer.sh; bash wheezy_to_stretch_installer.sh

From Ubuntu 14.04 to 16.04

apt-get update;apt-get install -y wget ca-certificates;wget https://gist.github.com/lowendscripts/e6e1d980af9e41806296c0dd5536bfaa/raw/1404_to_1604_installer.sh; bash 1404_to_1604_installer.sh

TUTORIAL

For brevity, I am only including the Debian Wheezy to Stretch gist here - the others are pretty similar and can be derived from this one script.

I CANT PUT THE TUTORIAL HERE AS I KEEP BEING BLOCKED BY CLOUDFLARE - SEE THE GISTS

Updates:

  • Updated Ubuntu 1404 link as it got borked.

  • Updated the gist links so that they are always up to date.

  • Updated the Ubuntu script to use upstart by default and remove annoying insserv errors.

  • Turned off upstart and used a different method to remove annoying insserv errors.

«13

Comments

  • LeviLevi Member

    lowendusername said: From Ubuntu 14.04 to 16.04

    Link pointing to "404 not found" gist. Nice work.

  • cociucociu Member
    edited June 2018

    did you have try to reboot and reinstall after all this ? i am sure will stuck

  • edited June 2018

    Of course @cociu! Many times. Try it yourself.

    ** Do I get 10x service now? **

    (see about 1/4 of the way down)

  • edited June 2018

    @LTniger said:

    lowendusername said: From Ubuntu 14.04 to 16.04

    Link pointing to "404 not found" gist. Nice work.

    Sorted now.

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @lowendusername said: I have tested them on two different cociu VPS, and they work.

    If they work, @cociu will have to modify his setup so that they don't work. ;-)

  • @cociu how about you fix the $24 worth of VPSes he is talking about?

  • ehabehab Member
    edited June 2018

    @cociu ^ this is a good idea.

  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker

    I have a mechanics kit to use your pickup as a 5 ton payload truck. Note that I can't guarantee anything.

    Guys! If you have a use case that needs a current OS version how about spending a couple of $ more per year (like 5 or 10) and getting yourself a small KVM/XEN VPS? And for them simple storage boxen and the likes just run them with whatever kernel and OS version the OpenVZ box comes with.

  • SlushySlushy Member

    @JoeMerit said:
    @cociu how about you fix the $24 worth of VPSes he is talking about?

    If I am not mistaken, @cociu warns not to upgrade OS or your server will break.

  • seanhoseanho Member

    Great work, OP; that took some determination. Can you tell us more about the vzfifo stuff?

  • awesome, bookmarked!

  • Nice! If @cociu honors the 10x services thing, do report back! Everyone roots for the underdog in these situations!
    (Except possibly @cocu and @nekki. - I hear there's some dispute over a sister and a dowery??) =)

    Thanked by 2emgh raindog308
  • K4Y5K4Y5 Member

    @lowendusername said:
    Of course @cociu! Many times. Try it yourself.

    ** Do I get 10x service now? **

    (see about 1/4 of the way down)

    I'd like to see that happen. @cociu may as well put you on a dedicated server in order to offer 10x resources for life :P

    Thanked by 1vimalware
  • emghemgh Member

    10x incoming

  • mkshmksh Member

    @jsg said:
    I have a mechanics kit to use your pickup as a 5 ton payload truck. Note that I can't guarantee anything.

    Guys! If you have a use case that needs a current OS version how about spending a couple of $ more per year (like 5 or 10) and getting yourself a small KVM/XEN VPS? And for them simple storage boxen and the likes just run them with whatever kernel and OS version the OpenVZ box comes with.

    I think it's not that much of an OpenVZ problem here but @cociu's setup since from my experience upgrading Wheezy to (admittedly Devuan) Jessie causes zero problems usually. Still i see where you coming from in regard to upgrading against the hosts recommendation and KVM being way better if you want to customize. Personally i am down to a single OpenVZ VPS and it's a NAT box so i guess that hardly counts.

  • Who on earth would go to a host with an OS that only receives updates for another year and if you try to upgrade it, you won't even be able to use the vps anymore?

  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker
    edited June 2018

    @mksh said:
    I think it's not that much of an OpenVZ problem here but @cociu's setup since from my experience upgrading Wheezy to (admittedly Devuan) Jessie causes zero problems usually. Still i see where you coming from in regard to upgrading against the hosts recommendation and KVM being way better if you want to customize. Personally i am down to a single OpenVZ VPS and it's a NAT box so i guess that hardly counts.

    My point isn't even about "OpenVZ is bad". I myself think it is not something I'd like to use but I understand perfectly well that others like it or at least consider it OK enough for some cases. My point is that (while technically probably an interesting entertainment) OpenVZ always comes with some caveats and "never do that" points. So if one buys and uses an OpenVZ one should damn stick to the rules and accept the limitations.

    I condemn the "solution" offered here because many of those using it won't understand what they are doing, will create problems, and finally the providers support is the idiot in this game who has to repair the VPSs (or set them up again). For free of course or else the script drones will open plenty "[insert OpenVZ provider] is shitty. VPS doesn't work!" threads here smearing the provider whose rules they broke.

    So, from my point of view we have 1 winner who showed off how smart he is, some temporarily happy script drones and many hours of support work wasted as well as quite some providers and customers on those nodes getting problems one way or the other due to that script. Plus of course more "[provider X] is scamming!!!" threads here at LET and elsewhere. Not exactly what I call a win-win.

    And let's be honest: That whole thing IS but a show-off. The guy says it basically even himself with his fat "warning". My favourite is the "I accept no responsibilty" warning. So, who will accept responsibility? Provider support. Simple - and ugly.

  • man, I hope I knew there was that 10x service offer going on, I should had put more effort on that. Cheers on the OP

  • mkshmksh Member

    @jsg said:

    @mksh said:
    I think it's not that much of an OpenVZ problem here but @cociu's setup since from my experience upgrading Wheezy to (admittedly Devuan) Jessie causes zero problems usually. Still i see where you coming from in regard to upgrading against the hosts recommendation and KVM being way better if you want to customize. Personally i am down to a single OpenVZ VPS and it's a NAT box so i guess that hardly counts.

    My point isn't even about "OpenVZ is bad". I myself think it is not something I'd like to use but I understand perfectly well that others like it or at least consider it OK enough for some cases. My point is that (while technically probably an interesting entertainment) OpenVZ always comes with some caveats and "never do that" points. So if one buys and uses an OpenVZ one should damn stick to the rules and accept the limitations.

    I already agreed with this but then i also don't have much of a problem with handing people guns to shoot themselves in the foot with. Might as well teach them a lessen that running scripts you don't understand is a really bad idea.

    I condemn the "solution" offered here because many of those using it won't understand what they are doing, will create problems, and finally the providers support is the idiot in this game who has to repair the VPSs (or set them up again). For free of course or else the script drones will open plenty "[insert OpenVZ provider] is shitty. VPS doesn't work!" threads here smearing the provider whose rules they broke.

    People breaking @cociu's VPS are pretty much old news. They'll just be laughed at. If these scripts stop working at some point or there is even a slight chance of error when using them it might get a bit out hand though.

    So, from my point of view we have 1 winner who showed off how smart he is, some temporarily happy script drones and many hours of support work wasted as well as quite some providers and customers on those nodes getting problems one way or the other due to that script. Plus of course more "[provider X] is scamming!!!" threads here at LET and elsewhere. Not exactly what I call a win-win.

    @cociu doesn't really waste any time on broken VPS. He might ask the client if he has a sister though.

    And let's be honest: That whole thing IS but a show-off. The guy says it basically even himself with his fat "warning". My favourite is the "I accept no responsibilty" warning. So, who will accept responsibility? Provider support. Simple - and ugly.

    Not saying you don't have a point but you also have to admit the no responsibility clause is a staple in tons of licenses for even the most harmless stuff.

    Tbh i like the spirit behind of this. Someone said it wouldn't work and OP took the challenge. Why not show the results? The this-is-dangerous reasoning is what has removed tons of good information (Geez, there is virus source code on this site! Kill it!). Yeah, it's a tad bit overly user friendly but oh well.

  • cociucociu Member

    Just to mention this :

    many people from here was upgrade to ubuntu 16 even i have told about the issues. Te vps in some case was function up to 1-3 month until the customer was make a upgrade . After this the vps was broke. So for the moment i will not give much credit to this solution, maybe is the good one but this will see in the near future.

  • defaultdefault Veteran

    How hard is it to add new templates in OpenVZ? Does it require lots of time? Does it require huge money investments? Does it require system restarts, downtime or offline time for current customers on machine? Does it require that all current VPS be upgraded to new templates?

    I am not a provider therefore I don't know, I am lazy to search online yet I feel like asking for the sake of discussion to satisfy my hungering curiosity.

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @default said:
    How hard is it to add new templates in OpenVZ? Does it require lots of time? Does it require huge money investments? Does it require system restarts, downtime or offline time for current customers on machine? Does it require that all current VPS be upgraded to new templates?

    It has been said many times before, but let me say it again: @cociu's setup for these budget OpenVZ plans is special, it's not a completely garden-variety OpenVZ setup. What exactly has been modified is a business secret, but (as I understand it) it was done in order to prevent unreasonable people from trying to run Windows on these cheap plans (via embedded virtualization). Not a great solution, we can probably all agree, but at the same time, it's not @cociu's fault that there were unreasonable people trying to abuse the system.

  • FalzoFalzo Member

    @angstrom said:

    @default said:
    How hard is it to add new templates in OpenVZ? Does it require lots of time? Does it require huge money investments? Does it require system restarts, downtime or offline time for current customers on machine? Does it require that all current VPS be upgraded to new templates?

    It has been said many times before, but let me say it again: @cociu's setup for these budget OpenVZ plans is special, it's not a completely garden-variety OpenVZ setup. What exactly has been modified is a business secret, but (as I understand it) it was done in order to prevent unreasonable people from trying to run Windows on these cheap plans (via embedded virtualization). Not a great solution, we can probably all agree, but at the same time, it's not @cociu's fault that there were unreasonable people trying to abuse the system.

    however, hitting a reinstall button in a providers control panel should always exactly do that - reinstalling the VM, regardless of what the former system has been.

    especially with OVZ, were this is supposed to simply destroy the old container completly and deploy a fresh one from templates I will always lack the understanding why anything done inside the container should be able to break that external process...

  • cociucociu Member

    Falzo said: I will always lack the understanding

    what people need to understand here is :

    i sell this offers with some terms , one of them is no ubuntu 16, debian 8, centos 7. If for someone is difficult to understand is assume the risk of vm block.

  • defaultdefault Veteran

    @cociu said:

    Falzo said: I will always lack the understanding

    what people need to understand here is :

    i sell this offers with some terms , one of them is no ubuntu 16, debian 8, centos 7. If for someone is difficult to understand is assume the risk of vm block.

    OK. Why?

    It's very easy to understand the terms and templates, but why such terms and templates exist in the first place? What stops you, or makes it difficult for you, to install newer templates or kernel?

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @Falzo said:

    @angstrom said:

    @default said:
    How hard is it to add new templates in OpenVZ? Does it require lots of time? Does it require huge money investments? Does it require system restarts, downtime or offline time for current customers on machine? Does it require that all current VPS be upgraded to new templates?

    It has been said many times before, but let me say it again: @cociu's setup for these budget OpenVZ plans is special, it's not a completely garden-variety OpenVZ setup. What exactly has been modified is a business secret, but (as I understand it) it was done in order to prevent unreasonable people from trying to run Windows on these cheap plans (via embedded virtualization). Not a great solution, we can probably all agree, but at the same time, it's not @cociu's fault that there were unreasonable people trying to abuse the system.

    however, hitting a reinstall button in a providers control panel should always exactly do that - reinstalling the VM, regardless of what the former system has been.

    especially with OVZ, were this is supposed to simply destroy the old container completly and deploy a fresh one from templates I will always lack the understanding why anything done inside the container should be able to break that external process...

    I agree that it's puzzling! Perhaps in their setup, every (re)install requires some manual intervention?

    In my view, the inability to perform a reinstall is probably the biggest disadvantage of these plans. Sometimes, one experiments with a certain configuration and then would like to experiment with another one, in which case a reinstall can be very useful in order to give a fresh, unmodified configuration, so it's a disadvantage if one can't perform a reinstall.

    I look at these cheap OVZ plans as simply offering backup space. Just set them up with one's preferred backup tools and don't experiment too much!

  • edited June 2018

    GENERAL RESPONSES

    @JoeMerit said:

    how about you fix the $24 worth of VPSes he is talking about?

    I am not bothered about the $24, really, I just wanted to point out to people that they are risking losing real money.

    @jsg said:
    I have a mechanics kit to use your pickup as a 5 ton payload truck. Note that I can't guarantee anything.

    The "Open Source Community" an entire Operating System, including kernel, software packages, servers, clients, libraries, daemons, etc and its all for free. Note that nothing is guaranteed. I just give a fair warning.

    @torrbox said:
    Who on earth would go to a host with an OS that only receives updates for another year and if you try to upgrade it, you won't even be able to use the vps anymore?

    The OpenVZ 2.6.32 kernel is only supposed to be getting updates until November 2019 itself, and plenty of people still buy them. Who on earth buys them.......cheeeeeeeeaaaap people. Even the "Top Providers" here still offer OpenVZ.

    @jsg said:
    OpenVZ always comes with some caveats and "never do that" points

    Being able to run the Operating Systems I describe here is not a restriction of OpenVZ.

    I condemn the "solution" offered here because many of those using it won't understand what they are doing, will create problems, and finally the providers support is the idiot in this game who has to repair the VPSs

    @jsg said:
    hours of support work wasted

    @jsg said:
    So, who will accept responsibility? Provider support.

    There are no extra support needs for people needing reinstalls etc. because cociu just ignores them, sometimes and sometimes not telling them so;

    @jsg said:
    That whole thing IS but a show-off.

    I have provided it as a script for users convienience. I have described all the steps in the script so that non-drones can understand the process and perform it manually if they so wish.

    @jsg said:
    The guy says it basically even himself with his fat "warning". My favourite is the "I accept no responsibilty" warning.

    I have told people that I have only tested my solution on two nodes, both with the same kernel and told them the names of the exact same templates I am using. I have made it clear that people are taking a risk if they use my script, given the support situation at hostsolutions.ro. It shouldn't be a risk to whether people will actually be able to use the VPS they have purchased, but it is. No open source dev ever accepts responsibility for anything - its the users choice to run my script and I help them make an informed choice.

    WHAT VZFIFO IS

    @seanho said:
    Can you tell us more about the vzfifo stuff?

    When an OpenVZ container boots, for some reason it needs to tell the host node it has booted and the convention way this is done is to run the command touch /.vzfifo . For older Linux distributions, this was performed using a single line command in /etc/inittab which is run every time a machine (whether virtual or real) is booted. With the move to systemd, this stopped being the case and so you need to create a systemd service to perform the same function.

    I am not absolutely sure what sourcery is performed by the host node when it sees that the /.vzfifo has been touched, I think it injects or sets up the network configuration or something like that?

    ADVICE

    @cociu - There are two reasons that people who upgraded their operating systems are pissed off and one reason that you get pissed off with them. For the users, it is because:

    • their VPS won't boot any more, and therefore they can't access their data (but I bet very few users actually have this problem because they, like me, only try upgrading OpenVZ on a freshly installed system; and

    • they cannot even reinstall their VPS to a template that does work, because your panel will not let them. They then contact you for support, which I feel is reasonable even on an unmanaged service because the VPS is not booting, and you either ignore them for months or tell them (sometime nastily) "tough luck, you were told not to upgrade".

    Not everyone will see or remember the "do not upgrade" rule as it is only contained in forum posts. There is nothing in the panel by the reinstall button, in the welcome email, etc. Although lowendtalkers will know about the rule and your response by the regular threads on here, most Chinese who don't speak English (and anyone else using Google Translate) will probably have to understood it by the time it's passed through translation.

    You could at least solve the VPS unable to boot and reinstall issue by running four simple commands on each of your Debian / Ubuntu templates, then re-uploading them, which I offer to you here: https://gist.github.com/lowendscripts/489c9583c60355e40f233b1c52ff671b/raw/

    Even if the upgrade fails (and by that I mean daemons (possibly including SSH) stop working, the user can still reinstall their server, and therefore there would be no reason to contact support. The only reason I ever contact support is if a VPS is unbootable, or it's down for more than an hour / 24 hours (depending on criticality and how much I have paid for it) AND I have no idea why it is down. This would mean that it would be unececessary for users to contact support to even try and obtain a reinstall.

    Paragraph redacted as cloudflare won't let it through.

    Adding a clause on your website's terms and conditions file. As of today it doesn't contain any such clause.

    @Falzo said:
    however, hitting a reinstall button in a providers control panel should always exactly do that - reinstalling the VM, regardless of what the former system has been.

    This would be much better!

    @cociu said:
    Te vps in some case was function up to 1-3 month until the customer was make a upgrade

    My script / tutorial automatically installs Ubuntu 16.04.4, which is the most recent distribution, so whatever issues those customers have not occurred so far. While experience with using Ubuntu 16.04 on hostsolutions is limited to basic testing, I have personally been using Debian Stretch on a VPS that I use daily for seven months and have had no problems during this time.

    @cociu said:
    i sell this offers with some terms , one of them is no ubuntu 16, debian 8, centos 7. If for someone is difficult to understand is assume the risk of vm block.

    But you have a Centos 7 image available to install?

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    cociu said: i sell this offers with some terms , one of them is no ubuntu 16, debian 8, centos 7

    ...and...why?

    Just can't be bothered?

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @lowendusername: I'm impressed by all of the effort that you've invested in this. I'm just afraid that your efforts won't be sufficiently appreciated.

  • defaultdefault Veteran

    @angstrom said:
    @lowendusername: I'm impressed by all of the effort that you've invested in this. I'm just afraid that your efforts won't be sufficiently appreciated.

    I also gave him/her a thanks for all that effort put into lowendscripts but I don't know how much it's appreciated, simply because it's rarely necessary; I strongly think not all OpenVZ providers are like HostSolutions. Besides, we are slowly stepping into an era of KVM with idling servers and wasted computing power by non-creative monkeys.

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