Libguestfs - Oct 2017 - Re: Virtualbox vdi Input Format and man pages

[stef204 sent me the full log since it contains sensitive information]

The log says that virt-v2v cannot see anything at all on the 34.1 GB
disk (as if the disk is blank).  However I think the actual problem is
that you've given the wrong disk type in the XML:

     <disk type='file' device='disk'>
       <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
                                 ^^^
       <source file='xxx.vdi'/>
       <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
     </disk>

‘.vdi’ is probably not raw format but something else (most likely 'vdi')

According to ‘qemu-img --help’, qemu supports the vdi format,
hopefully at least enough to be able to read it which is all that
virt-v2v needs.

Rich.

-- 
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08.10.2017, 13:50, "Richard W.M. Jones"
<rjones@redhat.com>:
> [stef204 sent me the full log since it contains sensitive information]
>
> The log says that virt-v2v cannot see anything at all on the 34.1 GB
> disk (as if the disk is blank). However I think the actual problem is
> that you've given the wrong disk type in the XML:
>
>      <disk type='file' device='disk'>
>        <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
>                                  ^^^
>        <source file='xxx.vdi'/>
>        <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
>      </disk>
>
> ‘.vdi’ is probably not raw format but something else (most likely
'vdi')
>
> According to ‘qemu-img --help’, qemu supports the vdi format,
> hopefully at least enough to be able to read it which is all that
> virt-v2v needs.
>
OK, so to fix, just change this line--like this?

   <driver name='qemu' type='vdi'/>

On Sun, Oct 08, 2017 at 02:16:43PM -0600, stef204 wrote:
> 
> 
> 08.10.2017, 13:50, "Richard W.M. Jones"
<rjones@redhat.com>:
> > [stef204 sent me the full log since it contains sensitive information]
> >
> > The log says that virt-v2v cannot see anything at all on the 34.1 GB
> > disk (as if the disk is blank). However I think the actual problem is
> > that you've given the wrong disk type in the XML:
> >
> >      <disk type='file' device='disk'>
> >        <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
> >                                  ^^^
> >        <source file='xxx.vdi'/>
> >        <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
> >      </disk>
> >
> > ‘.vdi’ is probably not raw format but something else (most likely
'vdi')
> >
> > According to ‘qemu-img --help’, qemu supports the vdi format,
> > hopefully at least enough to be able to read it which is all that
> > virt-v2v needs.
> >
> 
> OK, so to fix, just change this line--like this?
> 
>    <driver name='qemu' type='vdi'/>
I think so, yes.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
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08.10.2017, 13:50, "Richard W.M. Jones"
<rjones@redhat.com>:
> [stef204 sent me the full log since it contains sensitive information]
>
> The log says that virt-v2v cannot see anything at all on the 34.1 GB
> disk (as if the disk is blank). However I think the actual problem is
> that you've given the wrong disk type in the XML:
>
>      <disk type='file' device='disk'>
>        <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
>                                  ^^^
>        <source file='xxx.vdi'/>
>        <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
>      </disk>
>
> ‘.vdi’ is probably not raw format but something else (most likely
'vdi')
>
Running it currently with the following change in the xml file  seems to be
doing the job [it returns "libguestfs: closing guestfs handle
0x55f167f97db0 (state 0)"]:

   <driver name='qemu' type='vdi'/>

I have an important question:

While we were going back and forth here and I was waiting for your feedback
(which I should repeat, is most appreciated) I tried this command, from reading
the man pages:

% virt-v2v -i disk Win7-convert.vdi -of qcow2 -on Win7.qcow2 -o local -os
/mnt/partition2

The -on option probably was not needed as I ended up with a name like
Win7.qcow2-sda when I just wanted Win7.qcow2

However, it completed without failure.  I then created a new VM using
libvirt/Virt-Manager and it booted just fine.  Once booted, I went on to
uninstall the virtualbox-guest-additions and install this:
<https://www.spice-space.org/download/windows/spice-guest-tools/spice-guest-tools-latest.exe>

And all seems to work properly.  I have a network connection and clipboard is
shared, etc.

This was just a test from a copy or the original vdi file I had made using dd. 
So I am going to possibly redo it "properly" now for a
"final" conversion.

The question is:  What am I getting extra by using the -i libvirtxml option as
opposed to the more plain:

% virt-v2v -i disk Win7-convert.vdi -of qcow2 -o local -os /mnt/partition2

On Sun, Oct 08, 2017 at 02:41:30PM -0600, stef204 wrote:
> The question is:  What am I getting extra by using the -i libvirtxml option
as opposed to the more plain:
> 
> % virt-v2v -i disk Win7-convert.vdi -of qcow2 -o local -os /mnt/partition2
Guests consist of the disk images, plus copious metadata.

When you give just the disk image to virt-v2v (‘-i disk disk.img’), it
has to make many guesses about the metadata.  See this file for
details:
https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/blob/master/v2v/input_disk.ml

Sometimes these guesses will be suboptimal, and by supplying the
correct metadata you can get a more correct conversion (‘-i libvirtxml’
or even better getting the true metadata from VirtualBox).

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
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