[virt-tools-list] vmdk to LVM

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 04:56:04PM +0300, Mihamina Rakotomandimby wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I use to install my KVM VMs with (I shorten):
>   $ sudo lvcreate -n a-lvm [...]
>   $ sudo virt-install [...]  --disk path=/dev/mapper/a-vg/a-lvm
> 
> A colleague went with a bunch of "*.vmdk" that I think I can use:
> http://goo.gl/KxigR
> I would like to stick with my convention to use one LVM per VM, so
> I'm looking for some resources teaching how to switch from a file
> disk image to a LVM:
> - How to calculate the right size to pass to "lvcreate"?

qemu-img info

> - How to transfert the file image to the LVM?

qemu-img convert

However note that qemu has some problems with VMDK files.  Mostly
these are solved if you use a new enough version of qemu/qemu-img, but
the version in CentOS 6 definitely *won't* work for VMDK 4 files (in
fact, it will silently corrupt them).

> One solution could be to create a LVM, format it mount it, copy the
> disk image on it, but it's crappy  (add one unnecessary FS layer).
> 
> My host system is an up to date CentOS6.
> The guests are VirtualBox VM with legacy browsers (IE6, FF3.6,...).

If you're planning to run them under KVM you may need to do some
manual v2v work.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
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