How to migrate an OpenVZ container to another hardware node

If you have a container that you want to move to another hardware node to help load balance your servers, this walk-through will explain how.

The first thing you need to do is setup SSH keys.

On the server that you are going to move a container FROM, run the following command:

• NOTE: The above command might be word wrapped. But it is all one single command.
• <destination_node_ip> This is the IP address of the server you are moving the container to
• <destination_node_port> This is the SSH port of the server you are moving the container to

Next, you need to find the container id (CTID).  To do this, on the hardware node that the container is currently on, run the following:

vzlist -a | grep host.someserver.com

You should see an output similar to this:

       228        103 running   123.123.123.123   host.someserver.com

In this case, the CTID is 228.  Now that you have this number, from the server you are moving the domain from, run the following:

vzmigrate -v--ssh="-p destination_node_port"destination_node_ip 228