From real machine to virtual box

Support
1

i need to put my nethserver installation to a virtual box machine. i followed this guide http://askubuntu.com/questions/34802/convert-my-physical-operating-system-to-a-virtualbox-disk to make a .vdi file for virtual box.
but after booting machine in virtual box i receive a kernel panic. this:

kernelpanic.png729×468 21.1 KB

why? there is a solution or trick to resolve my problem?

2

First of all, IMVHO, there’s no need to clone a linux box into a virtual machine… just backup your data, setup your VM and restore… you’re done

anyway, you’ve to recreate kernel image…

something like

s /boot/initrd-*.img | sed ‘s,.initrd-(.).img,\1,’ | while read initrd; do mkinitrd -f /boot/initrd-$initrd.img $initrd; done

should do the trick…

you need to boot your VM from your ISO and enter rescue mode

HTH

3

That might be a driver problem, did you tried g4l? its a clone tool link
ghost

4

well… form real to VM is a clear (and big) hw/driver issue… hw is completely different :smiley:

anyway, cloning a linux server is useless and prone to problems

5

how is possible this?

I use nethserver like domain controller. i tried to reinstall into VM and make a new domain controller with the same name, but the client don’t connect…

6

you need to RESTORE your data…

you can’t expect things to work in such way…

google for “domain SID” and you’ll will understand why :slight_smile:

7

You could try with dd or clonzilla to clone your partition

Those kind of error mightbe link with your virtual hardware
did you pay attention about the

  • number of processor, type of paravirtualization (less true with linux but)
  • controller of harddrive (exemple : now it’s a SATA and it was a SCSI before)
  • …

you could also try with a P2V like
https://www.vmware.com/fr/products/converter
VirtualBox is able to read VMDK

8

let me say: “no, don’t use dd or clonezilla”

NS relies completely on db, fragments and templates… once you restore a full backup on a clena new install, you’re done (you have to install additional packages, of course)

using clonig tools on NS, where you’re using sw raid and lvm is useless and likely a PITA.

2 Likes
9

Hi,

… I know, how old the thread is - but as a reference it might be helpful …

I had the problem in another scenario. HAt to clone a centos 5.4 from xen to vshpere.
Centos is a nightmare for cloning :frowning:
I “found out” the hard way, that my way of partitioning the harddisk was not compatible
with the way the Installer did it - dont ask my why. I did it with debian for 1001 times without
any problems.

My solution was:
Running a complete Installation von Centos, booting to a LiveCD, deleting all files of the
installation, rsync all the files from the original installation (booted from a liveCD, too, so
the databases, … do not become inconsistent)

Then a chroot, reinstall grub and it was running again.

( as long as the rescue-cd is not able to mount your partitions to /mnt/sysimage you don’t
even have a chance to get the thing running)

regards
wolfgang