Arch Linux VPS

Template:Article summary start Template:Article summary text Template:Article summary heading Template:Article summary wiki Template:Article summary end From Wikipedia:Virtual private server:

Virtual private server (VPS) is a term used by Internet hosting services to refer to a virtual machine. The term is used for emphasizing that the virtual machine, although running in software on the same physical computer as other customers' virtual machines, is in many respects functionally equivalent to a separate physical computer, is dedicated to the individual customer's needs, has the privacy of a separate physical computer, and can be configured to run server software.

Providers that offer Arch Linux

Warning: We cannot vouch for the honesty or quality of any provider. Please conduct due diligence before ordering.

Note: This list is for providers with a convenient Arch Linux image. Using Arch on other providers is probably possible, but would require loading custom ISOs or disk images or installing under chroot.

Provider	Arch Release	Virtualization	Locations	Notes
123 Systems	2010.05 i686/x86_64	OpenVZ	Dallas, TX	Arch available as a selection upon reinstall. Very old (2.6.18-308) kernel - See OpenVZ troubleshooting.
Afterburst	2010.05 i686/x86_64	OpenVZ	Nuremburg	Formerly FanaticalVPS, Kernel used as off September 6th on Milly Stack is too old to run Arch on.
AlienVPS	2010.05	Xen, KVM	Los Angeles, New York
Clodo.ru	2011.??	Xen	Moscow	Can pay per hour. Lists an invalid release version of the installer.
Edis	2011.08 i686/x86_64	vServer, KVM	Austria, Chile, Germany, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Iceland, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, UK, USA
EOReality	(?) i686/x86_64	OpenVZ	Chicago	Need to use special glibc-vps repo for this provider . See OpenVZ troubleshooting for instructions. You will also need to remove heimdal.
DirectVPS	2012.09 x86_64	Xen	Amsterdam, Rotterdam
Generation-Host	2012.07	Xen	Chicago IL, Clifton NJ and Toronto ON Canada
GigaTux	2011.08 x86_64	Xen	Chicago, Frankfurt, Israel, London, San Jose
Host Virtual	2011.08	Xen	Amsterdam, Chennai (Madras), Chicago, Dallas, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Reston, San Jose
Hostigation	2010.05 i686	OpenVZ, KVM	Charlotte, Los Angeles	You can migrate to x86_64.
IntoVPS	2012.05 i686/x86_64	OpenVZ	Amsterdam, Bucharest, Dallas, Fremont, London
Linode.com	2012.07	Xen	Atlanta, Dallas, Fremont, London, Newark, Tokyo	Uses a custom kernel; do not install the linux package.
Lylix	2007.08	?	?
Node Deploy	?	OpenVZ, KVM	LA, Germany	unmanaged, solusvm server manager
Netcup	2011.10 x86_64	vServer	Germany	beta, uses custom Kernel (2.6.36) with no direct iptables access
OpenVZ.ca	2010.05 i686/x86_64	OpenVZ	Canada
proPlay.de	2011.10 i686/x86_64	OpenVZ, KVM	Germany
Rackspace Cloud	2011.10	Xen	Chicago, Dallas, London, Hong Kong	Can pay per hour.
RamHost.us	2009.10	OpenVZ, KVM	Atlanta, England, Germany, Los Angeles
Tilaa	2012.04 i686/x86_64	KVM	Amsterdam
TransIP	2011.08	KVM	Amsterdam
XenVZ	2009.12 x86_64	OpenVZ, Xen	UK?
Virpus	2010.05 x86_64	OpenVZ, Xen	Kansas City
Vmline	2012.08.04-dual.iso	Xen-HVM	Poland - Kraków	S-Net reseller. It's probably imposible to install i686 due to lack of xen_netfront and xen_blkfront modules
VPS6.NET	2010.05 i686/x86_64 OpenVZ, 2012.01 x86_64 Xen	OpenVZ, Xen	Germany, Romania, Turkey, USA
UK2.net	2010.05 i686/x86_64	Xen	United Kingdom	Appears to use a custom kernel; do not install the linux package.

Installation

KVM

See KVM#Preparing an (Arch) Linux guest.

Xen

See Xen#Arch as Xen guest (PVHVM mode) and/or Xen#Arch as Xen guest (PV mode).

Troubleshooting

OpenVZ: kernel too old for glibc

Are you on a virtual private server (VPS) with an old kernel & broke your system? Are you using OpenVZ?

Arch Template Used: http://dev.archlinux.org/~ibiru/openvz/2010.05/arch-2010.05-i686-minimal.tar.gz

Note: for installs that have not been updated to glibc-2.16, it will save you lots of time and prevent major breakage to do:

pacman -U https://dev.archlinux.org/~ibiru/openvz/glibc-vps/i686/glibc-2.16.0-101-i686.pkg.tar.xz

or

pacman -U https://dev.archlinux.org/~ibiru/openvz/glibc-vps/x86_64/glibc-2.16.0-101-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

Add a single "-d" if needed. The instructions below assume that this has been done.

Following similar instructions from DeveloperWiki:usrlib.}}

Try doing the following to fix it:

1) Edit /etc/pacman.conf and add the following repository ABOVE [core]:

for 32-bit:

[glibc-vps]
Server = http://dev.archlinux.org/~ibiru/openvz/glibc-vps/i686

for 64-bit:

[glibc-vps]
Server = http://dev.archlinux.org/~ibiru/openvz/glibc-vps/x86_64

2) Then run pacman -Syy followed by pacman -Syu. You will be notified to upgrade pacman first.

3) Upgrade the pacman database by running pacman-db-upgrade as root.

4) Edit /etc/pacman.conf.pacnew (new pacman config file) and add the following repository ABOVE [core]:

[glibc-vps]
Server = http://dev.archlinux.org/~ibiru/openvz/glibc-vps/$arch

5) Replace /etc/pacman.conf with /etc/pacman.conf.pacnew (run as root):

mv /etc/pacman.conf.pacnew /etc/pacman.conf

6) Upgrade your whole system with new packages again pacman -Syu

If you get the following or similar error:

initscripts: /etc/profile.d/locale.sh exists in filesystem

Simply delete that file (e.g., rm -f /etc/profile.d/locale.sh), then run pacman -Syu again.

If you get the following or similar error:

filesystem: /etc/mtab exists in filesystem

Run pacman -S filesystem --force

If you get the following or similar error:

libusb-compat: /usr/bin/libusb-config exists in filesystem

Run pacman -S libusb and then pacman -S libusb-compat

7) Before rebooting, you need to install the makedev package by running pacman -S makedev.

8) Add MAKEDEV to /etc/rc.local:

/usr/sbin/MAKEDEV tty
/usr/sbin/MAKEDEV pty

9) Edit /etc/inittab, comment out the following lines (otherwise you will see errors in /var/log/errors.log):

#c1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 -s 38400 tty1 linux
#c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 -s 38400 tty2 linux
#c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 -s 38400 tty3 linux
#c4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 -s 38400 tty4 linux
#c5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 -s 38400 tty5 linux
#c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 -s 38400 tty6 linux

10) To enable the use of the hostname command, install the package inetutils from the official repositories.

11) Remove disabling of SysRq key since this is blocked by OpenVZ and causes errors

Edit /etc/sysctl.conf, comment out the following line:

#kernel.sysrq = 0

12) Save and reboot.

Enjoy & thank ioni if you happen to be in #archlinux

Moving your VPS from network configuration in rc.conf to netcfg (tested with OpenVZ)

1) Install netcfg

pacman -S netcfg

2) Create a netcfg configuration file /etc/network.d/venet

CONNECTION='ethernet'
DESCRIPTION='VPS venet connection'
INTERFACE='venet0'
IP='static'
IPCFG=(
#IPv4 address
'addr add xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/32 broadcast 0.0.0.0 dev venet0'
#IPv4 route
'route add default dev venet0'
#IPv6 address
'addr add xxxx:xx:xx::x/128 dev venet0'
#IPv6 route
'-6 route add default dev venet0'
)
DNS=('xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx' 'xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx')

3) Edit your netcfg main conf file /etc/conf.d/netcfg

NETWORKS=(venet)
WIRED_INTERFACE="venet0"

4) Try your new setup

rc.d stop network && ip addr flush venet0 && netcfg venet

Your VPS should still be connected and have its IP addresses set correctly. (Check with ip a)

DO NOT proceed to next step if this isn't the case.

5) Make your new setup survive reboots

In the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf, replace network with net-profiles.

Remove all networking information that is in /etc/rc.conf.

reboot

Moving your VPS from initscripts to systemd

This is very similar to a regular arch system, except you probably don't have access to your kernel line.

1) Move from network in rc.conf to netcfg (see above).

2) Install systemd

pacman -S systemd

2 bonus for OpenVZ) Remove kernel core dump pattern since this is blocked by OpenVZ and causes errors

Edit /usr/lib/sysctl.d/coredump.conf, comment out the following line:

#kernel.core_pattern=|/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-coredump %p %u %g %s %t %e

3) Move all configuration from /etc/rc.conf (except the DAEMONS array) to its appropriate location.

See Native configuration and rc.conf for details.

Now your /etc/rc.conf should only contain the DAEMONS array.

4) Install systemd-sysvcompat

pacman -S systemd-sysvcompat

It will ask to replace sysvinit, say yes.

reboot

5) Move daemons from the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf to systemd

See the guide and the daemons list.

If your DAEMONS array is now empty, skip next step.

6) Moving rc.d daemons with no systemd support, example: vzquota

Create a custom systemd service file for vzquota: /etc/systemd/system/newvzquota.service:

[Unit]
Description=Setup vzquota on VPS
ConditionFileIsExecutable=/etc/rc.d/vzquota

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/etc/rc.d/vzquota start
ExecStop=/etc/rc.d/vzquota stop
TimeoutSec=0
StandardInput=tty
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Note: It is recommended to choose a .service file name that is different from the name of the daemon, because systemd might try to call the LEGACY scripts with the old name.

Enable this service:

systemctl enable newvzquota.service

Remove vzquota from the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf

Repeat this step to remove all daemons from /etc/rc.conf.

7) Removing /etc/rc.local and /etc/rc.local.shutdown

Write custom .service files to replace functionality in /etc/rc.local and /etc/rc.local.shutdown. You can take a look at /usr/lib/systemd/system/rc-local.service and /usr/lib/systemd/system/rc-local-shutdown.service for inspiration.

8) Removing initscripts

Your /etc/rc.conf file must look like this:

DAEMONS=()

and /etc/rc.local and /etc/rc.local.shutdown must now be empty.

Uninstall initscripts

pacman -R initscripts

reboot

SSH fails: PTY allocation request failed on channel 0

Some VPSes have an outdated rc.sysinit. You may be able to login via serial console or with

> ssh root@broken.server '/bin/bash -i'

Then run the following:

# mv /etc/rc.sysinit.pacnew /etc/rc.sysinit
# reboot

Once it’s working, you should be able to comment out the udevd_modprobe line in rc.sysinit to save a bit of RAM the next time you reboot.

If the above doesn’t work, take a look at http://fsk141.com/fix-pty-allocation-request-failed-on-channel-0.