The concept is simply reapplying the steps that the slackware setup normally follows but with the necessary changes (mainly omissions) to fit our container environment: so I uncompressed the slackware setup initrd to check Patrick Volkerding’s work

gzip -dc /data/slackware/slackware64-13.37/isolinux/initrd.img | cpio -i -d -H newc --no-absolute-filenames

and had a look at the install shell scripts in /usr/lib64/setup.
Then I took as a base the existing lxc-debian template and modified it to:
- download some slackware packages for a minimal installation (many thanks to Vincent Batts for the selection);
- install them in a folder;
- apply all the standard postinstall routines;
- apply the necessary container fixes (many thanks to Chris Willing that pioneered on this and documented it well ).

I published the result on github
https://github.com/Ponce/lxc-slackware

“…ok, that’s enough!
we want to play with containers too!”

I was getting to it

If you want to try them you have to decide which kind of networking you want for them: choices are basically between using:
- a network bridge on your network interface, with the containers in the same network segment as the host;
- a network bridge on a dummy interface used as gateway with NAT: the containers will be in a private network segment.

If you want to offer services and you have plenty of ips to use (like in an home network), maybe the first solution can be easier, as you don’t have to use iptables to redirect incoming connections to the private network of the containers.

Slackware-13.37 kernel already supports all you need, so let’s setup our interface, assuming our host eth0 (the primary ethernet interface, in the example) address is 192.168.1.5 and that we are in a 192.168.1.0/24 class C network with 192.168.1.1 as our gateway.
Here are the step to follow in each situation:

containers on the same network segment as the host

We have to put the interface down because we are going to add it to the bridge, so if you’are doing this through an ssh connection, I suggest you to run this as a script in a screen session, to avoid being cutted off

/sbin/ifconfig eth0 down
/sbin/brctl addbr br0
/sbin/brctl setfd br0 0
/sbin/ifconfig br0 192.168.1.5 netmask 255.255.255.0 promisc up
/sbin/brctl addif br0 eth0
ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 up
route add default gw 192.168.1.1
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/br0/proxy_arp

At the end the bridge setup should be ok: you can find a version of the script above (to be included in /etc/rc.d/rc.local) here; I also modify /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf on my nodes where I use this configuration to omit eth0 config (the script is enough to bring up the interface on the host running the containers).

Next, we create a configuration file, let’s call it chuckd.config, for the chuckd virtual container that we are going to do: decide a custom hardware address (anything valid should do) and ip (as we said, in the same range)

lxc.network.type = veth
lxc.network.flags = up
lxc.network.link = br0
lxc.network.hwaddr = 00:aa:11:bb:22:cc
lxc.network.ipv4 = 192.168.1.10/24
lxc.network.name = eth0

containers on a natted private network

In this case the script to bring up the private network is this

/sbin/brctl addbr br0
/sbin/brctl setfd br0 0
/sbin/ifconfig br0 192.168.2.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 promisc up
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/br0/proxy_arp

/usr/sbin/iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
# examples of redirections
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 51 -i eth0 -j DNAT --to 192.168.2.10:51
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -i eth0 -j DNAT --to 192.168.2.10:80

at the end of the script you can see some example of redirection of incoming connections toward the containers in the private 192.168.2.0/24 network.

also the config file changes (with an ip on the same network)

lxc.network.type = veth
lxc.network.flags = up
lxc.network.link = br0
lxc.network.hwaddr = 00:aa:11:bb:22:cc
lxc.network.ipv4 = 192.168.2.10/24
lxc.network.name = eth0

- – -

Now we’ll setup our template so we can use it to create the container: change directory to /usr/lib/lxc/templates if you are on a 32 bit system

cd /usr/lib64/lxc/templates
wget --no-check-certificate https://raw.github.com/Ponce/lxc-slackware/master/lxc-slackware
chmod +x lxc-slackware

We are ready to create our first container, chuckd, using lxc-create and a slackware mirror: if not specified, defaults to the main one; here I’m using a local copy

MIRROR=http://192.168.1.2 lxc-create -f /path_to/chuckd.config -n chuckd -t slackware

wait some seconds (25, here) and you will have your slackware-13.37 minimal container in /var/lib/lxc/chuckd/rootfs

But you have to do another step before firing it up, and it’s setting the network parameters in /var/lib/lxc/$container/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf to the one of your network, if you don’t have a dhcp server available

IPADDR[0]="192.168.1.10"
NETMASK[0]="255.255.255.0"
USE_DHCP[0]=""
...
GATEWAY="192.168.1.1"

(192.168.2.10, 255.255.255.0 and 192.168.2.1, in the nat example above) and a nameserver in /var/lib/lxc/$container/etc/resolv.conf (here I’m using google’s one)

nameserver 8.8.8.8

Then launch a screen session and fire up the container

screen
lxc-start -n chuckd

you’ll see something like this

INIT: version 2.86 booting
INIT: Entering runlevel: 3
Going multiuser...
Updating shared library links:  /sbin/ldconfig &
Starting sysklogd daemons:  /usr/sbin/syslogd /usr/sbin/klogd -c 3 -x
Starting OpenSSH SSH daemon:  /usr/sbin/sshd
Generating public/private rsa1 key pair.
Your identification has been saved in /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key.
Your public key has been saved in /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
27:ac:44:47:c6:9d:a7:c3:e0:1a:5d:44:a5:d7:1e:69 root@chuckd
The key's randomart image is:
+--[RSA1 2048]----+
|       .o+oo.    |
|       oo +... . |
|      .o.+.o. E  |
|     ..oo +. o . |
|      .oS ..  .  |
|     ... o       |
|      .          |
|                 |
|                 |
+-----------------+
Generating public/private dsa key pair.
Your identification has been saved in /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key.
Your public key has been saved in /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
dd:37:4d:fb:59:0f:06:da:e7:23:0a:55:3b:50:34:d0 root@chuckd
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ DSA 1024]----+
|          .++    |
|           .E.   |
|          . o   .|
|         . * o o.|
|        S + = *.o|
|         .   * o=|
|        .   . o.o|
|         . . . . |
|          .      |
+-----------------+
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Your identification has been saved in /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.
Your public key has been saved in /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
ac:2e:04:67:ba:11:3a:17:fe:6b:4c:80:95:65:26:e9 root@chuckd
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|  .++            |
|  ++             |
| +               |
|. E o  .         |
| o O    S        |
|o = o  .         |
| o B  .          |
|  . =.           |
|   ..o.          |
+-----------------+
Generating public/private ecdsa key pair.
Your identification has been saved in /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key.
Your public key has been saved in /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
a5:e2:95:07:42:fc:ed:62:e7:c6:29:4a:45:54:17:2d root@chuckd
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ECDSA  256]---+
|     .. ... oo   |
|     ...   .E .  |
|      ..o..  .   |
|       o.=.      |
|      . S..      |
|     . +o.o      |
|      o. = .     |
|     .  . =      |
|      .. o       |
+-----------------+

* container chuckd started. *

and the console output will stop there: that means that the container fired up successfully!
Having it in a screen session means that you can detach the session (ctrl-A D) and reattach when needed (screen -D -r), it’s optional but useful.

After launching, you can connect to its ip via ssh or open a console with

lxc-console -n chuckd

You can install whatever package you use (also full package sets) with slackpkg, but you can alternatively use slapt-get, if you like.

Enjoy virtual containers!

Considerations: lxc aims to process isolation and at the moment it’s not full: the template sets in the default config to start the containers with lxc.cap.drop=sys_admin, but that line can be commented out from the template or per container, if needed.

P.S. if you want to specify your own set of packages for the container, just create a text file with a modified version of this list, following the same syntax

export arch=x86_64
export PACKAGES=" \
a/aaa_base-13.37-$arch-3.txz \
a/aaa_elflibs-13.37-$arch-7.txz \
a/aaa_terminfo-5.8-$arch-1.txz \
a/bash-4.1.010-$arch-1.txz \
a/bin-11.1-$arch-1.txz \
a/bzip2-1.0.6-$arch-1.txz \
a/coreutils-8.11-$arch-1.txz \
n/dhcpcd-5.2.11-$arch-1.txz \
a/dialog-1.1_20100428-$arch-2.txz \
ap/diffutils-3.0-$arch-1.txz \
a/e2fsprogs-1.41.14-$arch-1.txz \
a/elvis-2.2_0-$arch-2.txz \
a/etc-13.013-$arch-1.txz \
a/findutils-4.4.2-$arch-1.txz \
a/gawk-3.1.8-$arch-1.txz \
a/glibc-solibs-2.13-$arch-4.txz \
n/gnupg-1.4.11-$arch-1.txz \
a/grep-2.7-$arch-1.txz \
a/gzip-1.4-$arch-1.tgz \
n/iputils-s20101006-$arch-1.txz \
a/logrotate-3.7.8-$arch-1.txz \
n/net-tools-1.60-$arch-3.txz \
n/network-scripts-13.0-noarch-3.txz \
n/openssh-5.8p1-$arch-1.txz \
a/openssl-solibs-0.9.8r-$arch-3.txz \
a/pkgtools-13.37-noarch-9.tgz \
a/procps-3.2.8-$arch-3.txz \
a/sed-4.2.1-$arch-1.txz \
a/shadow-4.1.4.3-$arch-2.txz \
a/sharutils-4.11-$arch-1.txz \
ap/slackpkg-2.82.0-noarch-5.tgz \
a/sysklogd-1.5-$arch-1.txz \
a/sysvinit-2.86-$arch-6.txz \
a/sysvinit-functions-8.53-$arch-2.txz \
a/sysvinit-scripts-1.2-noarch-43.txz \
a/tar-1.26-$arch-1.tgz \
a/udev-165-$arch-2.txz \
a/util-linux-2.19-$arch-1.txz \
n/wget-1.12-$arch-1.txz \
a/which-2.20-$arch-1.txz \
a/xz-5.0.2-$arch-1.tgz"

then source it before launching lxc-create

. packages_I_need_list

you can also pass to the script a custom SUITE variable to use other versions than 13.37 (but this is untested, as PACKAGES has to be changed too for each SUITE).
P.P.S. 14.9.2011: edited the nat bridge script following Chris Willing’s hints (thanks again! ).

References:
- Linux Containers (LXC) on Slackware© 13.37 (Chris Willing)
- LXC HOWTO (Dwight Schauer)
- lxc-users mailing list
- lxc-devel mailing list

let’s start

- make executable the init scripts of httpd (apache) and mysql

chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.{mysqld,httpd}

- initialize the database and create standard mysql tables (I suggest to read output on screen, it’s interesting)

mysql_install_db --user=mysql

- start the database daemon and execute a post initialization script: you need to input some data for setup (I suggest to accept defaults to questions)

/etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld start
mysql_secure_installation

- edit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf: uncomment a line to enable mod_php and add index.php to the DirectoryIndex directive

Include /etc/httpd/mod_php.conf

    DirectoryIndex index.php index.html

- get phpmyadmin from slackbuilds.org, build the package and install it

wget http://slackbuilds.org/slackbuilds/13.37/network/phpmyadmin.tar.gz
tar xf phpmyadmin.tar.gz
cd phpmyadmin
wget $( grep tar.xz phpmyadmin.info | cut -d\" -f2 )
chmod +x phpmyadmin.SlackBuild
PKGTYPE=txz ./phpmyadmin.SlackBuild
installpkg /tmp/phpmyadmin-*.txz

- start the webserver

/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd start

congratulations, your LAMP server is up and running!
your DocumentRoot is /var/www/htdocs/, put your stuff in there.
you are also free to look around in your phpmyadmin: use the root credentials setted during the mysql_secure_installation step

links http://localhost/phpmyadmin/

if you are on another host you can substitute localhost with the output of this command on the server

/sbin/ifconfig | grep "inet addr" | grep -v "127.0.0.1" | cut -d: -f2 | cut -d' ' -f1

Click here to view the embedded video.

you can alternatively watch it with mplayer

mplayer http://ponce.cc/videos/other/slackbuilds-gource.mp4

first I got the avatars off gravatar with a perl script.

then the command I’ve used to do this (inside of the slackbuilds repository folder) is

gource -1280x800 -s 0.7 --user-image-dir .git/avatar/ --default-user-image ../no_photo.png -a 0.25 --colour-images --bloom-multiplier 0.80 --bloom-intensity 0.55 --user-scale 1.8 --user-friction 0.7 --title "Slackbuild.org git history" --output-framerate 25 --disable-progress --stop-at-end --output-ppm-stream - | ffmpeg -vpre libx264-default -y -b 3000K -r 25 -f image2pipe -vcodec ppm -i - -vcodec libx264 ../gource.mp4

as I promised, I have added the necessary branches to my slackbuilds.org’s git master fork, so it will be easy to build a complete LXDE desktop using sbopkg.
I used existing slackbuilds.org components, I added alien bob’s scripts adapting them to slackbuilds.org template and I wrote some from scratch.

UPDATE: all the components are submitted to slackbuilds.org now so there’s no particular need to set up my repository, unless you want latest testing (but working) stuff.
I also removed the gnome-vfs building option because it’s obsolete starting with slackware 13.37.
I’ll try to keep it updated with the latest fixes, you can see them in the branch list of the git repository, so you can use them individually.

the quick install guide:

download and install the latest version of sbopkg (if you don’t have it already, as it’s a must-have application for slackware )
Launch it, go to the Utilities menu and use the Repository option to select the SBo-git repository.
you can then go back to the main menu and select the Sync option.
I can also use some command line alternatives
If you find any problems syncing, just

rm -fR /var/lib/sbopkg/SBo-git
sbopkg -r

use this text file as /var/lib/sbopkg/queues/lxde.sqf

libatasmart
sg3_utils
udisks
upower
leafpad
xarchiver | BEND_ME_OVER=kthxbai
openbox
xmms2
gpicview
lxappearance
lxappearance-obconf
lxde-common
lxrandr
lxterminal
menu-cache
lxmenu-data
lxlauncher
lxpanel
lxpanel-xmms2
lxtask
lxpolkit
lxsession
lxsession-edit
gvfs
libfm
pcmanfm
lxshortcut
lxinput
lxmusic
lxdm
vala
libgee
gksu-polkit

then launch

sbopkg -i lxde

choose in the dialog to keep the queue options and you’ve only to wait a little.

at the end, launching xwmconfig you can choose xinitrc.lxde and the next time you enter in X you’ll have a brand new shiny LXDE desktop.

LXDE for slackware current
--------------------------

many of the slackbuilds here are from alien bob's repository and slackbuilds.org

http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/lxde/build/

http://slackbuilds.org/

I simply adapted/updated some things to build on current and added some others.
You can check the build scripts used in the "build" folder:
LXDE.SlackBuild is the script to launch (it uses a build queue, it's a modified
version of kde build script).

I updated the version of the stuff beyond the latest stable packages on sourceforge,
as on git there's lotta new interesting stuff going on:

- new libfm and pcmanfm with automounting/udisks support
- new lxappearance (this is version 2, renamed in the build script)
- many translation and other updates

How to use:

* install the packages for your architecture:

  - the i486 ones if you are running slackware-current
  - the x86_64 ones if you are running slackware64-current

packages are UNTESTED on 13.1 (but, who knows, they might work   )

* be sure to have installed the packages tango-icon-theme (for the default
  desktop icons/menu theme), vte (for lxterminal), atk, glib, pango, cairo and
  gtk+2 from the official slackware repository (obviously also X packages  ).

* run xwmconfig as user and choose the lxde session.

* start/restart X.

* if you want to run lxdm as the session manager (optional) apply the patch that you can
  find in this directory (instructions are inside the patch itself) to
  /etc/rc.d/rc.4

**************************************
              WARNING!
**************************************
these packages include *one* update of the standard slackware packages, glib2,
but unfortunately is needed for the new libfm.

http://blog.lxde.org/?p=768

if you find any problems report them on this linuxquestion thread

I’m only a little disappointed for having to upgrade glib2 but, you know, it’s testing stuff

soon I’ll try to do branches about these packages on my slackbuilds.org fork so I can use this stuff in my sbopkg queue: for eric scripts I think I’ll do a first commit in the corresponding branch adding the original script and a second one with the modified version (I tried to follow the autools-template).

you can find on the download page also a .tar of the build folder (with the sources folder and links in the slackbuilds folders too, for easy self-building).

happy testing!

EDIT: looks like suspend works!

The slackbuilds.org git fork got updated, the x86_64 packages and the i486 ones too.

This, besides being great news, has some implications: my SBo-git repository for -current has no sense to be continued anymore, as the logic (and Robby too ) tells me to rebase my work on their repository.
It’s was also much cleaner and ordered, but I forked it on github and I started playing on it to have a branch to use to build my sbopkg queue.

so, if you want to follow my mods, the new address is:

http://github.com/Ponce/slackbuilds

2ManDVD                multimedia/2ManDVD: updated to 1.3.3, miscellaneous cleanups
LiVES                  multimedia/LiVES: fixed link to lives-exe binary, miscellaneous cleanups
audacity               audio/audacity: updated to latest 1.3.12 beta, miscellaneous cleanups
avidemux               multimedia/avidemux: fixed md5sum, added alien bob's fix for x86_64 paths and plugins build code
cabextract             system/cabextract: miscellaneous cleanups
cherokee               network/cherokee: updated to 1.0.1, added some configure options, miscellaneous cleanups
cksfv                  misc/cksfv: miscellaneous cleanups
clamav                 system/clamav: updated to 0.96.1, rewritten clamd.conf.patch, miscellaneous cleanups
cryptopp               libraries/cryptopp: downgraded to 5.5.2 for aMule
darkstat               network/darkstat: miscellaneous cleanups
dvgrab                 multimedia/dvgrab: miscellaneous cleanups
encfs                  revert system/encfs removal and adds a patch for the new toolchain
ffmpeg                 multimedia/ffmpeg: updated to r23248, added a configure option, miscellaneous cleanups
ffmpegthumbnailer      desktop/ffmpegthumbnailer: updated to 2.0.2, miscellaneous cleanups
foremost               system/foremost: miscellaneous cleanups
gavl                   libraries/gavl: added.
gdk-pixbuf             libraries/gdk-pixbuf: miscellaneous cleanups
gpac                   revert multimedia/gpac removal, adds a patch for the new libpng and miscellaneous cleanups
gst-plugins-bad        multimedia/gst-plugins-bad: updated to 0.10.18, miscellaneous cleanups
gst-plugins-ugly       multimedia/gst-plugins-ugly: updated to 0.10.14, miscellaneous cleanups
gst-python             libraries/gst-plugins-python: updated to 0.10.18, miscellaneous cleanups
hping3                 network/hping3: miscellaneous cleanups
id3                    audio/id3: miscellaneous cleanups
kino                   multimedia/kino: updated to 1.3.4 for the new ffmpeg
kvirc                  network/kvirc: updated to 4.0rc3 for qt4 build, miscellaneous cleanups
libiconv               libraries/libiconv: added libiconv, a text conversion library
libnice                libraries/libnice: downgraded to 0.0.10 for farsight2
libunicap              libraries/libunicap: added libunicap, a video capture library
ltris                  games/ltris: miscellaneous cleanups
mjpegtools             multimedia/mjpegtools: miscellaneous cleanups
obconf                 desktop/obconf: miscellaneous cleanups
perl-Compress-Raw-Zlib libraries/perl-Compress-Raw-Zlib: added perl-Compress-Raw-Zlib, a Perl interface to the zlib compression library
perl-Compress-Zlib     libraries/perl-Compress-Zlib: added perl-Compress-Zlib, a Perl interface to the zlib compression library
perl-IO-Compress-Base  libraries/perl-IO-Compress-Base: added perl-IO-Compress-Base, the base class for all IO::Compress and IO::Uncompress Perl modules
perl-IO-Compress-Zlib  libraries/perl-IO-Compress-Zlib: added perl-IO-Compress-Zlib, a Perl interface to allow reading and writing of gzip and zip files/buffers
python-twisted         network/python-twisted: miscellaneous cleanups
python2-chardet        libraries/python2-chardet: miscellaneous cleanups
scummvm                revert games/scummvm removal, updated to 1.1.1
snack                  audio/snack: added snack, a sound toolkit
soundtouch             revert libraries/soundtouch removal, updated to 1.5.0, miscellaneous cleanups
vice                   system/vice: added patch to fix build, miscellaneous cleanups
wmCalClock             desktop/wmCalClock: miscellaneous cleanups
wmMoonClock            desktop/wmMoonClock: miscellaneous cleanups
wmSun                  desktop/wmSun: miscellaneous cleanups
wmakerconf             desktop/wmakerconf: miscellaneous cleanups
wminfo                 desktop/wminfo: miscellaneous cleanups
wmnet                  desktop/wmnet: miscellaneous cleanups
wmweather              desktop/wmweather: miscellaneous cleanups
wormux                 games/wormux: updated to 0.9.2.1, miscellaneous cleanups
wvdial                 revert network/wvdial removal, updated to 1.6.1, miscellaneous cleanups
wxcam                  multimedia/wxcam: miscellaneous cleanups
x264                   multimedia/x264: updated to 20100425, added configure option, miscellaneous cleanups
zisofs-tools           revert system/zisofs-tools removal, miscellaneous cleanups

soon I’ll manage to build the queue on a fresh installed slackware 13.1 to try this new repository (last packages was built using SBo-git) so stay tuned if you prefeer prebuilt fresh goodies

P.S. in the meantime I managed to do lxde packages for slackware 13.1 from alien bob’s lxde build scripts and some stuff from slackbuilds.org, to create a slax-remix module to have an alternate desktop on that live distribution (it’s based on ex-current, now 13.1, too).
if you want to try them and report back any problem, I’ll be glad to improve them (if I am able to).

slackware confirm itself one of the most innovative distribution in the field, with software updates surpassing latest ubuntu

The SBo-git repository is ready too to be used with sbopkg on this new slackware version.

if you need fresh additional packages beside slackware standard full install, I built some (using sbopkg and SBo-git) for my personal use (the list) that I gladly share:
- x86_64
- i686

I massconverted now also the compat32 packages (waiting for official updates from alien bob) for running 32 bit software on multilib slackware64: if you are using those in the past, remember to remove libv4l-compat32 (it has been superseded by v4l-utils) before doing

upgradepkg --install-new --reinstall */*.txz

while in compat32 folder.

soon I’ll fix the individual branches to do a rebase and a merge in a new branch derived from master: after all, it looks cleaner to me than apply lot of fixes to current.

I also rebuilt my x86_64 packages (soon the i686 ones will follow).

then I’ll wait for the new 13.1 slackbuilds.org repository: alien bob hints about surprises and that stimulated a lot my curiosity

I managed to set up also a redmine site to have a frontend for my projects.

but the best thing is that SBo-git has a new contributor of patches/fixes: tnx a lot and welcome, grissiom.