[et-mgmt-tools] VMware/qemu-kvm-?? migration

[Joey Boggs]

Gene Czarcinski wrote:
> On Thursday 16 July 2009 15:42:41 Gene Czarcinski wrote:
>   
>>> Is the right SCSI driver available in the initrd?  You should be able
>>> to find out what driver(s) are in the guest's initrd using
>>> virt-inspector.
>>>       
>> Light bulb lights above head!
>>
>> Yup, yup ... thank you very much!  The problem is that the needed drivers
>> are not in the initrd file.
>>
>> Now I know what the problem is but "fixing" it will need some thought.
>>     
>
> OK, I got a "fix" that worked and the problem definitely was that the initrd file 
> did not contain the right/needed drivers for the new hardware configuration.
>
> First:  The guest is an i386 F9 system.  Although the VMware guest used a SCSI 
> adapter, I used a IDE adapter on qemu-kvm.  I did not bother converting the 
> file but just used a copy of the vmdk file.
>
> To get a good initrd file:  Bootup the F9 i386 distribution DVD and run rescue 
> mode.  Use scp to copy the "current" kernel and firmware rpms (the guest was 
> not up-to-date).  chroot the the guest's disks.  Install the kernel and 
> firmware rpms.  Reboot to the updated guests ... everything works!  Success!
>
> Before installing a new kernel rpm to get the updated initrd file, I tried just 
> running mkinitrd for the rescue/chroot mode but this did not appear to 
> generate a correct initrd file (it did not work).  I used:
>    mkinitrd  /boot/initrd______.img  <kernel_version>
>
> Whatever "dance" installing a kernel does to create a good initrd file, just 
> running mkinitrd is not it.  Any suggestions?  It would be nice to just run 
> mkinitrd to fix things.
>
>   
I used to do this manually over a year ago, updating /etc/modprobe.conf 
and then running mkinitrd should do the trick.

> Q: Does virt-p2v fixup initrd as part of its process? [No, I have not tried it 
> yet]
>
> Since guestfish gives me access to the filesystems on a virtual disk, it would 
> be nice if I could (easily) update the initrd to have the right drivers.  This 
> may not be practical since guestfish does not know what the guest's hardware 
> configuration looks like ... running rescue-mod and chroot may be the best that 
> can be used to fix things.
>
> Once I get the process down for migrating a Fedora guest from VMware to qemu-
> kvm, I will then look into the far bigger challenge of (ugh) Windows.
>
> Gene
>
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