[clug] Want to Virtualise an old Debian Potato System

Scott Ferguson scott.ferguson.clug at gmail.com
Wed Oct 9 05:30:01 MDT 2013


Corrections (apologies)

On 09/10/13 22:22, Scott Ferguson wrote:
> On 09/10/13 21:38, Stephen Hodgman wrote:
>> Thanks Steve.
>>  I just read about Clonezilla today and your solution sounds exactly
>> what I need.
>> I will try that out in the next few days hopefully.
>>
>> Stephen Hodgman
>> 0407 182 355
>> 02 6236 6380
>>
>> On 9/10/2013 9:27 PM, Steve Barnes wrote:
>>>> G'day all,
>>>> <snipped>

>>>> Steve
>>>>
>>>>
> Just use any live linux to dd an image of the machine (all partitions).
> You can either mount cifs/nfs/sshfs or pipe that image through ssh to
> another machine. e.g.:-
> |dd if=/dev/sda | ssh

> <http://wiki.sunnyside.home/wiki/doku.php?id=software:ssh>

please ignore the link - an unintended relic of my copy and paste from
the office wiki.

dd if=/dev/sda | ssh someone at somewhere dd of=/home/someone/potato_sda.img

(optionally use:bs=4096 conv=sync,notrunc,noerror)


> someone at somewhere dd of=/home/someone/potato_sda.img| |(optionally use:
> bs=4096 conv=sync,notrunc,noerror|)
> run from another terminal for progress updates:-
> |DD_PID=$(ps -eo pid,comm | awk '$2 == “dd” {print $1}')|
> |watch kill -USR1 $DD_PID|

DD_PID=$(ps -eo pid,comm | awk '$2 == “dd” {print $1}')
watch kill -USR1 $DD_PID
> You can use kpartx to mount the partitions in that image if you need
>
> The created image/s are RAW type which can then be converted to the
> virtual disk format of your choice for virtualbox/vmware or whatever. e.g.:-
>
>
>     Convert the image to VDI for VirtualBox
>
> |scott at work:~$ VBoxManage convertdd 4GBKey.img 4GBKey.vdi –format VDI
> Converting from raw image file=“4GBKey.img” to file=“4GBKey.vdi”…
> Creating dynamic image with size 3998220288 bytes (3813MB)…|

Both qemu and vmware also have image conversion tools
>
> You can also resize those partitions/disks once you've converted it to a
> virtualmachine format.
>
> Clonezilla will do it, but it makes the process more complicated. It
> doesn't create a single image file, and most vms won't work with that
> Clonezilla files so you need to create a virtualmachine then run the
> process again in reverse
>
> I also can't comment on HyperV support either, but I've used the dd
> method many times with Windoof and Linux physical machines.
>
> Of course, like most tasks, it can be done with rsync too ;)
>
> As it's potato you've only got lilo to worry about, so no UUID hacking
> as you will have with later linux - so you can just use tar to just copy
> all the files (very fast), then reinstall a boot sector (dd can copy
> just the boot sector)
>
> Kind regards



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