2.2.6. Partitioning the Hard Drives

Having chosen the storage type, you need to choose partitioning options on the INSTALLATION DESTINATION screen.

images/vzinstall13.png

Firstly, you will need to choose which of the disks are marked as System, Datastore, and Cache:

  • Use the System radio button to select a disk where the root partition with Virtuozzo system files (mounted to /) will be kept.
  • Use Datastore checkboxes to mark disks where virtual machines and containers will be kept. All such disks will be organized into a single volume group and mounted to the /vz mount point. At least one disk need to be marked as a data store. If Virtuozzo Storage chunk server role is selected, a chunk server will be created on each disk marked as a data store (in this case, the system disk cannot be marked as a data store).
  • Use Cache checkboxes to mark SSD drives where journals and cache will be kept. This option is only applicable for SSD drives to be used in Virtuozzo Storage clusters.

Secondly, in the bottom of the screen, you will need to choose:

  • Automatically configure partitioning and click Done to have the installation program create the default layout on the server.
  • I will configure partitioning and click Done to manually partition your disk(s).

When partitioning the disks, keep in mind that Virtuozzo requires these partitions:

  • Boot: mount point /boot, 1 GB, boot partition with Virtuozzo boot files, created on each HDD,
  • Root: mount point /, 12-24 GB, root partition with Virtuozzo files, created on the HDD marked System,
  • Swap: paging partition with the swap file system, created on the HDD marked System. The size depends on RAM:

    • if RAM is below 2 GB, swap size should be twice the RAM,
    • if RAM is 2-8 GB, swap size should be equal to RAM,
    • if RAM is 8-64 GB, swap size should be half the RAM,
    • otherwise swap size should be 32 GB
  • Data storage, depends on the chosen storage type:

    • Local: mount point /vz, at least 30 GB, storage for virtual machines, containers, and OS and application templates, an LVM volume group that spans all HDDs marked Datastore.
    • Virtuozzo Storage chunk server: mount point <cluster_name>-cs<N>, at least 100 GB, only required if the chunk server role is chosen.
  • In addition, either a 1 MB partition with the BIOS boot file system or a 200 MB partition with the EFI boot file system is required depending on your server configuration.

A typical partition layout for Virtuozzo on basic storage may look like this:

images/vzinstall14.png

A typical partition layout for Virtuozzo on Virtuozzo Storage may look like this:

images/vzinstall15.png