[linux-lvm] lvm to vmdk conversion

[linux-lvm] lvm to vmdk conversion

[Tapas Mishra]

Hi,
if this is not the right list for question the give me any link.
I am not clear as the term I want to know.
I have a virtualization setup(kvm) where few guest Operating Systems
are running in separate LVM partitions.

Here is output of lvscan

 ACTIVE            '/dev/abcd/lvm1' [100.00 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/abcd/lvm2' [150.00 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/abcd/lvm3' [50.00 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/abcd/lvm4' [100.00 GiB] inherit


I want all these OSeS running inside LVMs to be into a vmdk image.
I came across many tutorials on internet which talk of converting a
vmdk to qcow2 image using qemu-img.

I tried vmware-converter-client  also on a test machine which actually failed.
I want to convert all the above LVMs to vmdk image which I can give to
some people who will do experiments on the things installed in the VMs
as above on a Vmware environment or Xen even.
So what way should I go.
I came across a command
qemu-img convert -c -f raw -O vmdk /dev/abcd/lvm4 /backup/lvm4.img

Will the above affect the lvm4.
I do not want the VM running on original server to at all loose its
any of the content but also have a vmdk file for each of the Guest OS
which is running on kvm as mentioned above.
What should I google exactly I am not clear with this part.

Re: [linux-lvm] lvm to vmdk conversion

[Ray Morris]

> if this is not the right list for question the give me any link.

These are qemu questions, so indeed this is not the right list.
Your logical volumes happen to be the files you want to use
qemu-img on, but they are just files in this context, there's
no logical volume management (LVM) questions.

> I came across many tutorials on internet which talk of converting a
> vmdk to qcow2 image using qemu-img.

If you read at least one of those tutorials, you probably know
more about it than anyone on this list, so I'm waiting to learn
from you after confirm as below.

> qemu-img convert -c -f raw -O vmdk /dev/abcd/lvm4 /backup/lvm4.img
> 
> Will the above affect the lvm4.
> I do not want the VM running on original server to at all loose its
> any of the content

Most of the time, commands don't affect their input, so I'd guess
that the input file would be unchanged. Try it and see.  Maybe
make an extra copy of the source image, such as with dd, and test
it.  I'm curious to know what you learn during this process because
I also happen to have a bunch of virtual machine on LVs, which I
may convert to another type of image file at some point.
--
Ray Morris
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On 01/07/2011 04:12:09 AM, Tapas Mishra wrote:
> Hi,
> if this is not the right list for question the give me any link.
> I am not clear as the term I want to know.
> I have a virtualization setup(kvm) where few guest Operating Systems
> are running in separate LVM partitions.
> 
> Here is output of lvscan
> 
>  ACTIVE            '/dev/abcd/lvm1' [100.00 GiB] inherit
>   ACTIVE            '/dev/abcd/lvm2' [150.00 GiB] inherit
>   ACTIVE            '/dev/abcd/lvm3' [50.00 GiB] inherit
>   ACTIVE            '/dev/abcd/lvm4' [100.00 GiB] inherit
> 
> 
> I want all these OSeS running inside LVMs to be into a vmdk image.
> I came across many tutorials on internet which talk of converting a
> vmdk to qcow2 image using qemu-img.
> 
> I tried vmware-converter-client  also on a test machine which  
> actually failed.
> I want to convert all the above LVMs to vmdk image which I can give to
> some people who will do experiments on the things installed in the VMs
> as above on a Vmware environment or Xen even.
> So what way should I go.
> I came across a command
> qemu-img convert -c -f raw -O vmdk /dev/abcd/lvm4 /backup/lvm4.img
> 
> Will the above affect the lvm4.
> I do not want the VM running on original server to at all loose its
> any of the content but also have a vmdk file for each of the Guest OS
> which is running on kvm as mentioned above.
> What should I google exactly I am not clear with this part.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> linux-lvm mailing list
> linux-lvm@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
> read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/
> 
>