Re: accessing loopback filesystem+partitions on a file

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl@lkcl.net>]

On Wed, Jun 29, 2005 at 11:48:40AM +1000, Peter Chubb wrote:

> Luke> that loopback filesystems cannot be presented as block devices
> Luke> by the linux kernel (with no involvement of xen) seems to be a
> Luke> curious omission.
> 
> But they can!  But a loopback device can't be partitioned.  So do it
> one partition at a time.

 ian and mark kindly responded pointing out some programs which
 make that possible.

 i liked the LVM one best.

> You'll probably only have a few real filesystems on the disk image
> anyway.
 
 hi peter, thank you for responding.

 see http://hands.com/d-i, searching for "xen0".

 the key is to be able to test-run debian installations in
 a xen guest domain (with absolute minimal changes to the
 packages or the debian boot installs).

 and of course a debian install expects to see a hard drive, which it
 expects to be able to partition - so it is given one.

 l.