Keeping in step with the Linux kernel development, the OpenVZ project has announced availability of its operating system (OS) server virtualization software for the most recent stable Linux kernel 2.6.20 — introduced last month.

This new Linux kernel includes a number of bug fixes and improvements, along with support for the latest hardware.

"Linux 2.6.20 is also the basis for the next Ubuntu distribution, which potentially would enable us a smooth transition to add OpenVZ virtualization," said Kir Kolyshkin, manager of the OpenVZ project. "With this latest release of OpenVZ software, we've made a number of improvements to benefit our users in the open source community."

The OpenVZ software for Linux kernel 2.6.20 includes improvements in the following areas:

• Support for read-only bind mounts, which allows a read-only view into a read-write file system. This allows for greater levels of control and enhances security by only allowing specified parts of file systems to be made writable.

• Namespaces technology, resulting from on-going work on Linux kernel containers virtualization, is now used by OpenVZ software.

• A new I/O prioritization feature that makes it possible to set priorities for each virtual environment so that some can be set as high priority for disk access, and others as lower priority. This solves the problem of distributing I/O throughput (which can be a performance bottleneck) across all virtual environments.

The new OpenVZ kernel software can be downloaded here, http://openvz.org/download/kernel/2.6.20. Also, users can access helpful installation instructions from the OpenVZ wiki, http://wiki.openvz.org/Quick_installation. The site serves as a forum to gain and share knowledge about OpenVZ and includes documentation and a knowledge base with helpful advice.