Virtualising Linux

[wesleyw]

Has anyone virtualised a debian install to VMWare, XenServer or Hyper-V as I am having difficulty managing this?


Wes

[j17sparky]

What's the problem you're having?

On Citrix Xenserver its just a case of downloading the appropriate image (the GUI console tells you where to get it). Put it in your ISO repository and away you go.

[wesleyw]

I'm trying to convert from my physical Debian installation to a Virtual one I've created a virtual debian image however Platespin Vmware converter and xenserver (P2V) don't convert. XenServer and Platespin say that its an unsupported OS and vmware converter won't run on debian (mostly because it's a server not a desktop so it has no gui for the converter to run under)

Wes

[powdarrmonkey]

I run Debian 6.0 guests under XenServer. You need XS 5.6.1 FP1 for full paravirtualisation, and you need the multiarch DVD or unproxied internet access to do a netinst.

[j17sparky]

Never done a P2V so can't help there but can't you just install gnome while you run the vmware converter and then uninstall it after.

[dhicks]

Has anyone virtualised a debian install to VMWare, XenServer or Hyper-V as I am having difficulty managing this?

I've run Debian virtual machines on Xen, not XenServer. I've never had a problem converting from physical to virtual, and never had to use a conversion utility, I simply set up a new virtual machine with a harddrive, tar'ed the old machine's file system up and un-tar'ed it on the new harddrive. You could use rsync to get the same effect but with no intermediate storage needed.

[glennda]

Yeah i've not used debian but host multiple ubuntu vm's on KVM (runs in linux kernal Main Page - KVM)

If you used to linux then give KVM a go - its dead simple to setup and is really quick

[pete]

For vmware converter, have you tried cold booting from the CD / USB key?

Tell us about your Debian install, particularly the disk setup. You can get problems if you're using LVM, for example.

[wesleyw]

How would I go about Tar'ing the system up?

Wes

[dhicks]

How would I go about Tar'ing the system up?

As in the tar command:

UNIX man pages : tar ()

Boot your physical machine from a boot CD (SystemRescueCD works fine for me) and mount the harddrive:

mkdir /mnt/local
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/local

Mount somewhere to put the tar file:

mkdir /mnt/network
mount //server/path /mnt/network

Create a tar file of the entire harddrive:

cd /mnt/local
tar cf /mnt/network/image.tar *

Then boot up your VM, probably using the same boot CD image as for the physical machine, and run the same thing in reverse. You might have to format the VM's harddrive along the way:

mke2fs -i 128 -j /dev/sda1
mkdir /mnt/local
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/local
mkdir /mnt/network
mount //server/path /mnt/network
cd /mnt/local
tar xf /mnt/network/image.tar

You should now, hopefully, be able to boot your VM from its harddrive. You might have to edit /etc/fstab to make sure the harddrive gets mounted in the right place.

[morganw]

I run Debian 6.0 guests under XenServer. You need XS 5.6.1 FP1 for full paravirtualisation, and you need the multiarch DVD or unproxied internet access to do a netinst.

Are you able to migrate the guests between physical hosts? I upgraded to XenServer 5.6FP1 a couple of weeks ago and guests will crash after migration.

[powdarrmonkey]

Are you able to migrate the guests between physical hosts?

No, it's a known problem in commit 8a22b9996b001c88f2bfb54c6de6a05fc39e177a, first appeared in kernel 2.6.27.

[dhicks]

No, it's a known problem in commit 8a22b9996b001c88f2bfb54c6de6a05fc39e177a, first appeared in kernel 2.6.27.

Could they boot their old physical machine's disk image using a different kernel?

[powdarrmonkey]

Could they boot their old physical machine's disk image using a different kernel?

You can shut the guest down and move it between hosts. It's live migration that's broken with an F (the target host appears to corrupt the page table in the guest's kernel).

Anywho: my advice is to build a new guest and port services to it from the old physical box. If you've been diligent in keeping the box tidy and used the package manager properly, this should be a fairly easy job. If you haven't, this is a good time to fix that.