Requirements for Migrating to Containers

To avoid delays and problems when migrating a physical server to a Container, make sure that the following requirements are fulfilled:

Migrating to Containers on Linux servers :

• The Linux distribution installed on the physical server is supported by Parallels Server Bare Metal. To find out if your Linux distribution can be recognized by Parallels Server Bare Metal, you can check the /etc/vz/conf/dists directory on the Parallels server and look for the configuration file of your Linux distribution. It should have the name of Linux_Distribution_Name - version .conf where Linux_Distribution_Name and version denote the name of the Linux distribution and its version, respectively (e.g. redhat-5.conf ). If there is no corresponding distribution in the directory, you can do one of the following:
  • Create a new distribution configuration file and place it to the /etc/vz/conf/dists directory on the Parallels server. Detailed information on how to create new configuration files is provided in the Creating Configuration Files for New Linux Distribution section .
  • Start the migration process without having the right configuration file for your Linux distribution. In this case the unknown.conf distribution configuration file from the /etc/vz/conf/dists directory will be used for tuning the Container after the physical server migration. However, using the unknown.conf configuration file means that you will not be able to use standard Parallels Server Bare Metal utilities (e.g. pctl ) for performing the main operations on the created Container (such as setting the Container IP address or configuring the DNS parameters) and have to manually complete these tasks from inside the Container.
• ssh is installed on both the physical server and the Parallels. ssh is used to provide secure encrypted and authenticated communication for both physical servers. You can check if the ssh package is already installed on the server by executing the ssh -V command.
• rsync is installed on the physical server. rsync is used to copy the physical server contents to the Container. If the physical server rsync happens to be incompatible with the Parallels server, use the statically linked rsync from the /usr/local/share/vzlinmigrate directory on the physical server as well.

Migrating to Containers on Windows servers :

• The source and destination physical servers must have the same major and minor versions of Windows Server 2003 and 2008 and Service Pack, if any.
• The Server and Remote Registry services are running on the source server.
• The Volume Shadow Copy and Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider services are enabled on the source server.
• The default administrative shares (especially, ADMIN$ ) are enabled on the physical server.
• The following ports are opened on the physical server:
  • standard Windows Server ports used to access the physical server via the network sharing and remote registry capabilities (e.g. 445, 137, 138)
  • Parallels Containers-specific ports: 4433, 4434, 4435
• We also recommend that you disable your antivirus program on the physical server before migrating it to a Container on the Hardware Node.