VM Optimizations

This is all heavily based on The Lone Sysadmin and I can't really claim credit for any of it.

Elevator

Add to /etc/grub.conf kernel line(s):

elevator=noop

Disk Mounts

Add to each file system mount from "local" disks:

defaults,relatime

(Note: RH6 and C6 do this automatically in "defaults")

Swappiness

# echo vm.swappiness=0 >> /etc/sysctl.conf
# sysctl -p

Example Minimal ks.cfg

Attached

Notes:

• change your mount point for source files
• change the password hash
• this only has a 1GB swap file; if you anticipating needing more swap then you'll have to change it (read why here: Swap Size)
• this includes the "elevator=noop" option
• this includes the "relatime" option
• this includes the "auto-RAID" logic that will automatically RAID-1 the first two disks if they look identical; while this should never be used on VMs, we use this ks.cfg for kicking real systems and this keeps the logic intact