I recently setup a VPS on a new OpenVZ node and wanted to use it as a template for future VPS’s created on that node.  The instructions in the wiki are actually overkill for this situation; here’s all I had to do:

1. vzctl stop [vps id]
2. Create /tmp/vz-template-exclude.txt and add these lines to it:
   • .bash_history
   • lost+found
   • /dev/*
   • /mnt/*
   • /tmp/*
   • /proc/*
   • /sys/*
   • /usr/src/*
3. tar –numeric-owner -czvf /vz/template/cache/template-name.tar.gz -X /tmp/vz-template-exclude.txt /vz/private/[vps id]
4. cp /etc/vz/dists/centos.conf /etc/vz/dists/template-name.conf
5. vzctl start [vps id]