Is there a formal, or preferred, method for importing a physical CentOS machine into a VMware instance? I know they make software to move Windows machines, but I couldn't find one to handle our CentOS servers. I have done something via scp/sftp in the past, which *seemed* to work, but if there's a better way I'm more than interested in hearing the process.
Thanks! Scott
Scott Moseman wrote:
Is there a formal, or preferred, method for importing a physical CentOS machine into a VMware instance? I know they make software to move Windows machines, but I couldn't find one to handle our CentOS servers. I have done something via scp/sftp in the past, which *seemed* to work, but if there's a better way I'm more than interested in hearing the process.
What has worked for me is to use a liveCD to boot the image and then use ssh and tar to clone the machine to the virtual drives. You can find people suggesting netcat to do it but the ssh /tar method works because just about every liveCD has ssh and tar. Just mount the drive on the virt server say /mnt/newroot/, and if you separate images from
from the image run: # ssh remote.box.com tar c / | tar x -C /mnt/newroot
Adjust the tar attributes as needed.
Rick
Rick Barnes wrote:
Scott Moseman wrote:
Is there a formal, or preferred, method for importing a physical CentOS machine into a VMware instance? I know they make software to move Windows machines, but I couldn't find one to handle our CentOS servers. I have done something via scp/sftp in the past, which *seemed* to work, but if there's a better way I'm more than interested in hearing the process.
What has worked for me is to use a liveCD to boot the image and then use ssh and tar to clone the machine to the virtual drives. You can find people suggesting netcat to do it but the ssh /tar method works because just about every liveCD has ssh and tar. Just mount the drive on the virt server say /mnt/newroot/, and if you separate images from
from the image run: # ssh remote.box.com tar c / | tar x -C /mnt/newroot
Adjust the tar attributes as needed.
This will have the same issues as moving to a different physical machine, but if you ever have to deal with backup/resores it is a good idea to understand them. First, you need to make sure the filesystems you create are compatible with the target OS version. For example, if you mke2fs with the default options from a Centos4/5 boot/rescue CD, then copy over a centos 3 machine, it won't work - and the same for LVM versions if you use them. Then after the copy, you may have to adjust the /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/grub.conf copies to reflect new partition names or add filesystem labels to match the old names, and install grub. If the disk controller or VMware emulation is not the same as the old system (and not IDE) you have to build a new initrd image, too.
On Wed, 2007-08-08 at 10:44 -0500, Scott Moseman wrote:
Is there a formal, or preferred, method for importing a physical CentOS machine into a VMware instance? I know they make software to move Windows machines, but I couldn't find one to handle our CentOS servers. I have done something via scp/sftp in the past, which *seemed* to work, but if there's a better way I'm more than interested in hearing the process.
Thanks! Scott
You can use a free tool called "VMware Converter", available here: http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/
On 8/8/07, Timothy Selivanow timothys@easystreet.com wrote:
On Wed, 2007-08-08 at 10:44 -0500, Scott Moseman wrote:
Is there a formal, or preferred, method for importing a physical CentOS machine into a VMware instance? I know they make software to move Windows machines, but I couldn't find one to handle our CentOS servers. I have done something via scp/sftp in the past, which *seemed* to work, but if there's a better way I'm more than interested in hearing the process.
You can use a free tool called "VMware Converter", available here: http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/
VMware documentation says that its only for Windows machines.
Thanks, Scott
You can use a free tool called "VMware Converter", available here: http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/
VMware Converter is a Windows app. I haven't used it for P2V, but it does work great. (used for converting between ESX and VMware Server)
Problem is that the OP wants to P2V a CentOS system. The VMware Converter FAQ states" NOTE: Experimental support only is available for Linux-based physical to virtual machine conversions using the Vmware Converter BootCD (cold cloning) if the source physical machine has SCSI disks.
...so YMMV.
http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/faqs.html
-Shawn
-
Les Mikesell -
Rick Barnes -
Scott Moseman -
Shawn K. O'Shea -
Timothy Selivanow