Keeping in step with the Linux kernel development, the OpenVZ project has announced the availability of its operating system server virtualization software for the most recent stable Linux kernel 2.6.22, which was introduced in July.

OpenVZ for Linux 2.6.22 includes new PID (Process ID) namespace code that replaces the implementation that was previously in OpenVZ. The code is expected to be adopted in an upcoming release of the Linux kernel and was contributed to the Linux kernel by the OpenVZ project with additional contributions from IBM, plus requests, reviews and comments from other parties. Including the new PID code as part of this OpenVZ software release will provide better testing by broadening coverage. PID namespace ensures that a set of processes does not see any other processes that do not belong to the same set and is an essential prerequisite for live migration.

The new OpenVZ software also supports UID (User ID) namespaces, which is already included in the Linux kernel.

“In this kernel, we already support new Linux 2.6.22 features like the tickless kernel that results in cooler-running processors and increased power savings, along with the SLUB allocator, which is the core of kernel memory management and promises better performance and scalability,” said Kir Kolyshkin, manager of the OpenVZ project.

The new OpenVZ kernel software can be downloaded from http://openvz.org/download/kernel/2.6.22.