Installation guide
18 
Templates Overview 
Differences Between OS and Application EZ 
Templates 
Actually, there are four major differences between OS EZ templates and application templates: 
•  OS templates are used to create new Containers, whereas application templates provide 
additional software for already created Containers. 
•  OS templates may and usually do use action scripts, whereas application templates cannot use 
action scripts in the current version of Parallels Virtuozzo Containers. 
•  You may define a list of compatible templates and a list of required templates for application 
templates. 
•  OS templates and their updates are cacheable, whereas application templates and their 
updates are not. 
The last point needs further explanation. The fact is that creating a huge number of symlinks to the 
OS template when creating a Container (i.e. its private area) may take a very considerable amount 
of time. To reduce the time needed for creating a new Container, you should use the vzpkg 
create cache command allowing you to make a tarball of the potential private area of a 
Container based on the corresponding template. This tarball is also located in the 
/vz/template/cache directory. When a Container is being created, the tarball is simply 
deployed into the Container private area. 










