It’s possible to upgrade an Virtuozzo/OpenVZ CT/VPS from Debian 7 wheezy to Debian 8 jessie.
The only caveat is you might have issues with systemd depending on the hardware node (kernel version).
If you replace systemd with sysvinit you make sure the container will boot after upgrading.

1)

cat << EOF > /etc/apt/preferences.d/local-pin-init
Package: systemd-sysv
Pin: release o=Debian
Pin-Priority: -1
EOF

2)
sed -i 's/wheezy/jessie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
Also check /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*
apt-get update

3)
Install sysvinit:
apt-get install sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils

You can also do this after the upgrade, but make sure you do it before rebooting

This error can be ignored, it will work on reboot:

sysvinit: restarting...init: timeout opening/writing control channel /run/initctl
.init: timeout opening/writing control channel /run/initctl

4)
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade


There will be messages about new versions of configuration files (e.g. /etc/ssh/sshd_config)

reboot

Tips & tricks

Guest clipboard:

/usr/bin/VBoxClient
/usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard
/usr/bin/VBoxClient --draganddrop

Resize VDI:

• SIZE_IN_MB would be 30000 for 30GB
• VBoxManage list hdds

Windows Host:

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VboxManage.exe modifyhd YOUR_HARD_DISK.vdi --resize SIZE_IN_MB

Mac Host:

# /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxManage modifyhd YOUR_HARD_DISK.vdi --resize SIZE_IN_MB

Linux Host:

# VBoxManage modifyhd YOUR_HARD_DISK.vdi --resize SIZE_IN_MB

Linux Guest: # resize2fs /dev/sda1

Compact disk

Windows Guest:
– Cleanup
– Defrag
– sdelete -z, sdelete -c
– shutdown
– VboxManage modifyhd –compact disk.vdi

Convert disk:

/usr/bin/VBoxClient --displayVBoxManage internalcommands converttoraw file.vdi file.raw

VBoxManage clonehd hdd.vdi hdd.img --format raw

convertfromraw
  [--format VDI|VMDK|VHD]
  [--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
  [--uuid ]

convertfromraw stdin
  [--format VDI|VMDK|VHD]
  [--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
  [--uuid ]

clonehd <uuid|inputfile> <uuid|outputfile>
  [--format VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW|]
  [--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
  [--existing]

Autostop – Linux Host:

VBoxManage modifyvm VM [--autostop-type disabled|savestate|poweroff|acpishutdown]

VBoxManage modifyvm VM --autostop-type acpishutdown

Autostart init script:

From: https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=65194

Re: Autostart VM on debian 7.7 virtualbox 4.3.20

Post by lnunes_pt » 19. Dec 2014, 02:40
Hi PavloM,

The answer to the first question is, NO, you need not login to host. But also, NO, you need not reboot host to test VMs starts.
The manual section 9.23.1 is not complete. Don’t use vbox.cfg for the configuration file name, otherwise setproperty autostartdbpath will lead to command syntax issues later.

Just to be sure you know, the VirtualBox autostart service init script is specially used in cases where you have many users on the host and want to control who can autostart VMs upon boot.
If you’re the only user on the host its alo just simpler start any headless VM from /etc/rc.local.

Edit /etc/default/virtualbox

    VBOXAUTOSTART_DB=/etc/vbox
    VBOXAUTOSTART_CONFIG=/etc/vbox/vboxautostart.cfg

Edit vboxautostart.cfg using Bob example how to deny all and allow bob:

    default_policy = deny
    bob = {
        allow = true
        startup_delay = 10
    }

Create the vboxautostart.cfg file. Add vboxusers group to /etc/vbox and sticky bit.

    # chgrp vboxusers /etc/vbox
    # chmod 1775 /etc/vbox

Add vboxusers group to all users (of course).

Then Execute once as users:

    $ VBoxManage setproperty autostartdbpath /etc/vbox

And for every VM to start, then you find under /etc/vbox, user.start file.
But also how it will stop, then you find under /etc/vbox, user.stop file.

    $ VBoxManage modifyvm  --autostart-enabled on
    $ VBoxManage modifyvm  --autostop-type acpishutdown

Then test START and STOP as root without need of host reboot.

    # /etc/init.d/vboxautostart-service start

Logon to the VM and test the shutdown next. You should get logged off for system shutdown:

    # /etc/init.d/vboxautostart-service stop

Note The Virtualbox autostart script should exist /etc/init.d/vboxautostart-service (it can be downloaded from Source Code Repository: trunk -> src -> VBox -> Installer -> linux -> vboxautostart-service.sh)

Autostart delay:

VBoxManage modifyvm VMNAME --autostart-delay 10

Autostop – Windows Host:

• VmServiceTray: https://sourceforge.net/projects/vboxvmservice/
• Batch: https://git.io/v5qUP (run using Task Scheduler or gpedit > “Scripts Shutdown/Logoff” etc, untested)
• Python script: https://blog.ionelmc.ro/2014/01/04/virtualbox-vm-auto-shutdown/ (untested)

Display

VBoxManage controlvm VMNAME setvideomodehint 1680 975 16

(or 16/24/32)

Headless

VBoxManage startvm "VM" --type headless

Shares

Host: Share Folder (e.g. “foo”), Full Access (write)
Guest: # mkdir /mnt/foo; mount -t vboxsf ~/foo /mnt/foo

Mount VDI (NTFS)

Guest:

# modprobe nbd max_part=16
# qemu-nbd -c /dev/nbd0 image.vdi
# mkdir /mnt/image; mount /dev/nbd0p2 /mnt/image

To remove:
# qemu-nbd -d /dev/nbd0

Update 2022

Of course most of this is outdated by now and instead of Perl we now have PowerCLI (and govc) and open-vm-tools has replaced vmware-tools :)

VM – sysctl

Memory related optimalisation:

vm.swappiness = 10
vm.dirty_ratio = 60
vm.dirty_background_ratio = 2
vm.overcommit_ratio = 0
vm.overcommit_memory = 0
kernel.shmmax = 268435456
kernel.shmall = 268435456
vm.min_free_kbytes = 65536


Reboot a minute after a kernel panic:

kernel.panic = 60
kernel.panic_on_oops = 60


Disable IPv6:

net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1


VM – install vmware-tools

Debian:
sudo mount /dev/sr0 /media/cdrom; tar zxf /media/cdrom/*.tar.gz -C /tmp; sudo /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl -d<br />

RedHat:
sudo mount /dev/sr0 /mnt/cdrom; tar zxf /mnt/cdrom/*.tar.gz -C /tmp; sudo /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl -d<br />

VM – rescan/resize disk without reboot

echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host#/scan
/usr/share/doc/sg3-utils/examples/archive/rescan-scsi-bus.sh
/sys/class/scsi_disk
ls
cd 0:0:0:0
echo '1' > device/rescan
xfs_growfs /dev/sdb


Settings vmx

bios.bootDelay = "5000"
suspend.disabled = "TRUE"


Using vim-cmd

http://blogs.balius.com/2010/12/24/esxi-creating-new-virtual-machines-servers-from-the-command-line/

vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
vim-cmd vmsvc/device.diskremove 272 0 1 n
vim-cmd solo/registervm /vmfs/volumes/vm01/vm01.vmx vm01
vnum=$(vim-cmd solo/registervm /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/$1/$1.vmx)
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on $vnum
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off $(vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms |grep $1|awk '{print $1}')
vim-cmd vmsvc/destroy $(vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms |grep $1|awk '{print $1}')


vSphere SDK for Perl

Installation:

Download VMware vSphere Perl SDK
Linux: installer uses CPAN
Windows: ActivePerl is not included in 6.5 anymore so it needs to be installed first (Strawberry Perl is also supposed to work), installer uses PPM for packages

Options for authentication (besides user/password):

• Config file: --config
• Environment Variables: VI_USERNAME VI_PASSWORD
• Credential store: VICredStore.pm
• Session file: --sessionfile
• Windows SSPI: --passthroughauth

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-65/topic/com.vmware.perlsdk.pg.doc/viperl_proggd_preface.2.1.html
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-65/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-perl-sdk-65-programming-guide.pdf

Hardening script:

Original script: vmwarevSphereSecurityHardeningReportCheck.pl
vSphere 6.x update: vmwarevSphereSecurityHardeningReportCheck.pl

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9852
http://www.vmware.com/security/hardening-guides.html