Here's the problem. We perform full tar backups of our CentOS 4/5 machines in real-time at regular intervals. And when a disaster happens, we are able to restore those backups onto virgin filesystems, make the /dev/null, /dev/zero and /dev/console devices .. and boot the machine. This has worked well on standalone systems, and also on Xen 3.0.3 guests on CentOS 4.4 machines, where each guest filesystem resides on regular (Xen-host) real filesystem. But there's no way we've been able to make it work for CentOS 5 Beta guests on CentOS 5 Beta Xen hosts, where each guest disk resides in a file. The strategy goes something like: * losetup -o 32256 /dev/loop0 /XenGuests/Guest1 * mkfs -t ext3 /dev/loop0 * mount -t ext3 /dev/loop0 /mnt * cd /mnt && tar xjpf /tmp/Guest1.tbz * for i in console null zero; do /sbin/MAKEDEV -d /mnt -x $i; done * cd /tmp; umount /srv/vm1; losetup -d /dev/loop0 * xm create -c Guest1 And it always gets most of the way through .. then the guest dies. Ideas anyone .. please? -- Graham Jenkins +61 3 9925 4909 Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing http://www.vpac.org/ PO Box 201, Carlton South, Vic. 3053, Australia
Graham Jenkins wrote:> Here's the problem. We perform full tar backups of our CentOS 4/5 > machines in real-time at regular intervals. And when a disaster happens, > we are able to restore those backups onto virgin filesystems, make > the /dev/null, /dev/zero and /dev/console devices .. and boot the > machine. > > This has worked well on standalone systems, and also on Xen 3.0.3 guests > on CentOS 4.4 machines, where each guest filesystem resides on regular > (Xen-host) real filesystem. > > But there's no way we've been able to make it work for CentOS 5 Beta > guests on CentOS 5 Beta Xen hosts, where each guest disk resides in a > file. > > The strategy goes something like: > > * losetup -o 32256 /dev/loop0 /XenGuests/Guest1 > * mkfs -t ext3 /dev/loop0 > * mount -t ext3 /dev/loop0 /mnt > * cd /mnt && tar xjpf /tmp/Guest1.tbz > * for i in console null zero; do /sbin/MAKEDEV -d /mnt -x $i; done > * cd /tmp; umount /srv/vm1; losetup -d /dev/loop0 > * xm create -c Guest1 > > And it always gets most of the way through .. then the guest dies.What does "most of the way through" mean? Do those files have partition tables? Why not attach those volumes ro to another guest? -- Cheers John -- spambait 1aaaaaaa at coco.merseine.nu Z1aaaaaaa at coco.merseine.nu Please do not reply off-list