We are excited to announce the early version of our publicly available Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 8 (Alpha Release).
Our research and development teams are continually reviewing feedback from our valued partners and prioritizing the features for the next release to continually improve our software. Most software products move through a multi-step process before being released to the public. An alpha version is part of that system for developing efficient, accurate and bug-free software programs.
We are pleased to provide you with the details of this release. Please carefully review the detailed information provided below to learn how you can be part of the future development of our software.
Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 8 (Alpha Release)
Can I use the alpha releases in production?
Please don’t! While we don’t intend to release broken builds, these releases are very early in development, and not supported for production use, as they may contain errors, and any resulting instability could cause crashes or data loss, so you should not deploy this to a production environment. Instead, please try out the builds in a lab or test environment.
New Features
- The ability to upgrade to Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 8 in-place from Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 7 or VzLinux 8. (PSBM-106055, PSBM-125555)
- Simplified installation program. (PSBM-102709)
- The dispatcher component is now optional and not installed by default as are the 'prl*' tools like 'prlctl'. The primary API for managing virtual environments is now libvirt. The tools for managing virtual environments are now 'virsh' and 'virt-install'. The Parallels SDK as well as the 'prl*' tools can be installed for backward compatibility. (PSBM-125621, PSBM-107282)
- Supported guest operating systems for creating new containers and virtual machines are: VzLinux 7 and 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and 8, CentOS 7, AlmaLinux 8, Debian 10, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and 20.04 LTS, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 and 15. Additionally, these guest operating systems are supported in virtual machines only: Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022. Migrated containers and virtual machines with older guest operating systems should continue to work. (PSBM-130376)
- Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 8.0 Alpha is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 as well as the 4.18.0-x kernels. (PSBM-129885, PSBM-76756)
- Virtuozzo Storage can be installed using the kickstart file as described in the Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 7 PXE Installation Guide. Only the console tools are available. For instructions on how to use them, see the Virtuozzo Storage Administrator's Command Line Guide. (PSBM-125679)
- Libvirt storage pools and volumes can be used. (PSBM-107223)
- Problem reports can be collected and sent using the 'vzreport' tool. (PSBM-129605)
- Package repository metadata is no longer required for updating '/etc/virtuozzo-release' to avoid missed updates in case custom repositories are used. (PSBM-126978)
- The 'ip_conntrack_disable_ve0' option of the nf_conntrack kernel module has been dropped. Connection tracking is now enabled automatically if required by iptables rules. Otherwise, it remains disabled. (PSBM-52084)
Known Issues
- Resizing container disks may fail
- Microsoft Windows virtual machines created on this alpha build may not work
- Virtual machine snapshots may not work
- Network interface hotplugging may not work
- Backups are not implemented yet
Providing Feedback
Each release includes one or more changes and therefore we are looking to our partners in testing the new features and improvements of upcoming major releases and providing valued feedback.
This allows critical issues or fixes to be addressed, please provide Alpha feedback to: vhs8-alpha@virtuozzo.com
Download Instructions
You can download Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 8 – Alpha Release from the following URL:
http://repo.virtuozzo.com/vz/releases/vz8.iso
Once downloaded, install or upgrade from the previous version of Virtuozzo Hybrid Server.
Licensing
In order to install this alpha you will require a license key from Virtuozzo. You can contact a Virtuozzo expert directly to receive yours today by sending an email to sales@virtuozzo.com.
We hope you like what you see and look forward to hearing your feedback.
