Somehow one of our Xen servers ended up loaded with the i686 xen kernel, instead of the x86_64. The host has one windows VM running on it. The OS partition is file-based, but it also has a logical volume partition assigned for data. We would like to migrate the host server to a 64-bit kernel, which means moving the VM to one of our other 64-bit host servers. We tried simply copying the OS partition and using dd to move the LVM partition to a new host unsuccessfully. I'm pretty sure that dd may not be appropriate when moving between kernel architectures. However, even without the LVM partition specified in the vm config file, we are unable to boot the windows system. It looks like it is blue screening immediately, since we never get a console connection. Are there any instructions anywhere for moving VMs from one host architecture to another?
Current Host: Centos 5.3 i686 kernel 2.6.18-128.2.1.el5 Xen 3.0.3-80.el5_3.3
Destination Host: Centos 5.3 x86_64 kernel 2.6.18-128.2.1.el5 Xen 3.0.3-80.el5_3.3
Hi,
sounds strange.
Basically a dd should be enough to clone the machine.
I guess the hardware-model that gets through to the Windows-VM changes when the Kernel-Achitecture changes. So basically you swapped a 32-bit mainboard with a 64-bit mainboard - as far as VM is concerned.
So I guess you have to "reapair" your Windows with some kind of Windows-rescue-mode.
Which Windows is it?
With XP I had some success with booting from an install-media and then going to "repair existing" after the install-process has detected the already installed partition.
Afterwards all XP-patches had to be re-applied - though. But all installed applications were still there.
You'd better try that procedure with cloned data...
Kind regards
Nils
-----Original Message----- From: centos-virt-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-virt-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of James Roman Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 3:24 PM To: Discussion about the virtualization on CentOS Subject: [CentOS-virt] Migrate windows VM from i386 Host to x86_64 host
Somehow one of our Xen servers ended up loaded with the i686 xen kernel, instead of the x86_64. The host has one windows VM running on it. The OS partition is file-based, but it also has a logical volume partition assigned for data. We would like to migrate the host server to a 64-bit kernel, which means moving the VM to one of our other 64-bit host servers. We tried simply copying the OS partition and using dd to move the LVM partition to a new host unsuccessfully. I'm pretty sure that dd may not be appropriate when moving between kernel architectures. However, even without the LVM partition specified in the vm config file, we are unable to boot the windows system. It looks like it is blue screening immediately, since we never get a console connection. Are there any instructions anywhere for moving VMs from one host architecture to another?
Current Host: Centos 5.3 i686 kernel 2.6.18-128.2.1.el5 Xen 3.0.3-80.el5_3.3
Destination Host: Centos 5.3 x86_64 kernel 2.6.18-128.2.1.el5 Xen 3.0.3-80.el5_3.3
CentOS-virt mailing list CentOS-virt@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-virt
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Hildebrand, Nils, 232 -
James Roman