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OpenVZ Philosophy
19
Hardware Node Availability
Considerations
Hardware Node availability is more critical than the availability of a typical PC server. Since it
runs multiple Virtual Private Servers providing a number of critical services, Hardware Node
outage might be very costly. Hardware Node outage can be as disastrous as the simultaneous
outage of a number of servers running critical services.
In order to increase Hardware Node availability, we suggest you follow the recommendations
below:
Use RAID storage for critical VPS private areas. Do prefer hardware RAID, but software
mirroring RAID might suit too as a last resort.
Do not run software on the Hardware Node itself. Create special Virtual Private Servers
where you can host necessary services such as BIND, FTPD, HTTPD, and so on. On the
Hardware Node itself, you need only the SSH daemon. Preferably, it should accept
connections from a pre-defined set of IP addresses only.
Do not create users on the Hardware Node itself. You can create as many users as you need
in any Virtual Private Server. Remember, compromising the Hardware Node means
compromising all Virtual Private Servers as well.