[opensuse] migrating SUSE 9.2 to virtualbox machine
I have a physical server running SUSE 9.2 (which I cannot upgrade), and I am attempting to move it to a virtual machine using VirtualBox. I have changed grub and fstab to reflect the new hard drive names (hda instead of sda). I can get the virtual machine to boot into single user mode, but it freezes after a few minutes. If I boot into runlevel 5, I get an ncurses Yast which says "ACCEPT" and "CANCEL" and shows a big gray box where the menu choices should be. Choosing "ACCEPT" or "CANCEL" locks up the virtual machine. What am I missing? I'm guessing it's a hardware detection problem. I'm pretty experienced with Linux, but I'm new to SUSE. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. -Rob -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday, 2009-08-14 at 23:28 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
I have a physical server running SUSE 9.2 (which I cannot upgrade), and I am attempting to move it to a virtual machine using VirtualBox. I have changed grub and fstab to reflect the new hard drive names (hda instead of sda).
Has the architecture changed? 32 vs 64? Are you attempting to use the original physical disks, or are you using virtualized disks on the host?
I can get the virtual machine to boot into single user mode, but it freezes after a few minutes.
Have a look at /var/log/boot.msg and /var/log/messages Did you try runlevel 3? Single user mode is 1. Try running "top" to see what task ares being executed when it freezes.
If I boot into runlevel 5, I get an ncurses Yast which says "ACCEPT" and "CANCEL" and shows a big gray box where the menu choices should be. Choosing "ACCEPT" or "CANCEL" locks up the virtual machine.
That could be the video mode :-? - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkqGcR0ACgkQtTMYHG2NR9VGYQCeO0jdajGFMWDumKHCr2cKCrV5 VsUAn03U/VCM4+vrLGF8WQEY2+X5DEFi =hVZd -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 10:26:03AM +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Friday, 2009-08-14 at 23:28 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
I have a physical server running SUSE 9.2 (which I cannot upgrade), and I am attempting to move it to a virtual machine using VirtualBox. I have changed grub and fstab to reflect the new hard drive names (hda instead of sda).
Has the architecture changed? 32 vs 64?
Nope, both are 32 bit.
Are you attempting to use the original physical disks, or are you using virtualized disks on the host?
I dd'd the original disk, then ran: VBoxManage convertdd to produce a virtualized disk. By the way, I'm using the open source version of VirtualBox on a Debian host. It's version 1.6.6.
I can get the virtual machine to boot into single user mode, but it freezes after a few minutes.
Have a look at /var/log/boot.msg and /var/log/messages
Nothing gets written to /var/log/messages. boot.msg gets written, but I haven't seen any clues there. I'll look some more.
Did you try runlevel 3? Single user mode is 1.
I tried runlevel 3, but it freezes at "Starting nfsboot (sm-notify)".
Try running "top" to see what task ares being executed when it freezes.
I ran top and it froze the system! That might have just been perfect timing, though, because I reset and it again and it worked for a few minutes. Here's what was running when it froze (CPU was at 0%): init ksoftirqd/0 events/0 kblockd/0 pdflush aio/0 kswapd0 reiserfs/0 kcopyd/0 bash top Uptime was 2 minutes. Interesting... I reset and ran top again, and uptime was again 2 minutes when it froze.
If I boot into runlevel 5, I get an ncurses Yast which says "ACCEPT" and "CANCEL" and shows a big gray box where the menu choices should be. Choosing "ACCEPT" or "CANCEL" locks up the virtual machine.
That could be the video mode :-?
What would I do about that? Change a grub parameter? I tried vga=791 and vga=771 Thanks for your help. -Rob -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Rob Owens pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 10:26:03AM +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Friday, 2009-08-14 at 23:28 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
I have a physical server running SUSE 9.2 (which I cannot upgrade), and I am attempting to move it to a virtual machine using VirtualBox. I have changed grub and fstab to reflect the new hard drive names (hda instead of sda). Has the architecture changed? 32 vs 64?
Nope, both are 32 bit.
Are you attempting to use the original physical disks, or are you using virtualized disks on the host?
I dd'd the original disk, then ran:
VBoxManage convertdd
I have the latest version installed and cannot find any such option to VBoxManage. There is a convertfromraw but that is the closest.
to produce a virtualized disk.
By the way, I'm using the open source version of VirtualBox on a Debian host. It's version 1.6.6.
We're a friendly list and won't hold that against you. :-)
I can get the virtual machine to boot into single user mode, but it freezes after a few minutes. Have a look at /var/log/boot.msg and /var/log/messages
Nothing gets written to /var/log/messages. boot.msg gets written, but I haven't seen any clues there. I'll look some more.
You are looking at the logs on the VM, right and not the host?
Did you try runlevel 3? Single user mode is 1.
I tried runlevel 3, but it freezes at "Starting nfsboot (sm-notify)".
Try running "top" to see what task ares being executed when it freezes.
I ran top and it froze the system! That might have just been perfect timing, though, because I reset and it again and it worked for a few minutes. Here's what was running when it froze (CPU was at 0%):
init ksoftirqd/0 events/0 kblockd/0 pdflush aio/0 kswapd0 reiserfs/0 kcopyd/0 bash top
Uptime was 2 minutes. Interesting... I reset and ran top again, and uptime was again 2 minutes when it froze.
If I boot into runlevel 5, I get an ncurses Yast which says "ACCEPT" and "CANCEL" and shows a big gray box where the menu choices should be. Choosing "ACCEPT" or "CANCEL" locks up the virtual machine. That could be the video mode :-?
What would I do about that? Change a grub parameter? I tried vga=791 and vga=771
Thanks for your help.
-Rob
-- Ken Schneider SuSe since Version 5.2, June 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:46:34AM -0400, Ken Schneider - openSUSE wrote:
Rob Owens pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 10:26:03AM +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Friday, 2009-08-14 at 23:28 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
I have a physical server running SUSE 9.2 (which I cannot upgrade), and I am attempting to move it to a virtual machine using VirtualBox. I have changed grub and fstab to reflect the new hard drive names (hda instead of sda). Has the architecture changed? 32 vs 64?
Nope, both are 32 bit.
Are you attempting to use the original physical disks, or are you using virtualized disks on the host?
I dd'd the original disk, then ran:
VBoxManage convertdd
I have the latest version installed and cannot find any such option to VBoxManage. There is a convertfromraw but that is the closest.
Yeah, they seem to change the tools periodically.
to produce a virtualized disk.
By the way, I'm using the open source version of VirtualBox on a Debian host. It's version 1.6.6.
We're a friendly list and won't hold that against you. :-)
I was hoping that would be the case!
I can get the virtual machine to boot into single user mode, but it freezes after a few minutes. Have a look at /var/log/boot.msg and /var/log/messages
Nothing gets written to /var/log/messages. boot.msg gets written, but I haven't seen any clues there. I'll look some more.
You are looking at the logs on the VM, right and not the host?
Yes -Rob -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Am Samstag, 15. August 2009 schrieb Rob Owens:
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 10:26:03AM +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Friday, 2009-08-14 at 23:28 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
I have a physical server running SUSE 9.2 (which I cannot upgrade), and I am attempting to move it to a virtual machine using VirtualBox. I have changed grub and fstab to reflect the new hard drive names (hda instead of sda).
Has the architecture changed? 32 vs 64?
Nope, both are 32 bit.
Are you attempting to use the original physical disks, or are you using virtualized disks on the host?
I dd'd the original disk, then ran:
VBoxManage convertdd
to produce a virtualized disk.
By the way, I'm using the open source version of VirtualBox on a Debian host. It's version 1.6.6.
Did you allready try a more current version of VirtualBox ? Check <http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads> how to get it. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Am Samstag, 15. August 2009 schrieb Rob Owens:
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 10:26:03AM +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Friday, 2009-08-14 at 23:28 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
I have a physical server running SUSE 9.2 (which I cannot upgrade), and I am attempting to move it to a virtual machine using VirtualBox. I have changed grub and fstab to reflect the new hard drive names (hda instead of sda).
Has the architecture changed? 32 vs 64?
Nope, both are 32 bit.
Are you attempting to use the original physical disks, or are you using virtualized disks on the host?
I dd'd the original disk, then ran:
VBoxManage convertdd
to produce a virtualized disk.
By the way, I'm using the open source version of VirtualBox on a Debian host. It's version 1.6.6.
Did you allready try a more current version of VirtualBox ? Check <http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads> how to get it. -- I tried 2.1.4 this weekend because I found it in my repositories. I get
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 06:18:01PM +0200, Markus Koßmann wrote: the same problems, though. I know that's not the most current version, but I'm a little strapped for internet time because I'm on vacation this week (but I also need to solve this problem this week!). Right now I'm wardriving... -Rob -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Saturday, 2009-08-15 at 11:12 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 10:26:03AM +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On Friday, 2009-08-14 at 23:28 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
Are you attempting to use the original physical disks, or are you using virtualized disks on the host?
I dd'd the original disk, then ran:
VBoxManage convertdd
to produce a virtualized disk.
I'm not familiar with VB, so I can't comment on that.
By the way, I'm using the open source version of VirtualBox on a Debian host. It's version 1.6.6.
I see that openSUSE 11.0 came with 1.5.6 and 11.1 2.0.6, but there is a recent 3.0.4.
I can get the virtual machine to boot into single user mode, but it freezes after a few minutes.
Have a look at /var/log/boot.msg and /var/log/messages
Nothing gets written to /var/log/messages. boot.msg gets written, but I haven't seen any clues there. I'll look some more.
Maybe it freezes before syslog is started.
Did you try runlevel 3? Single user mode is 1.
I tried runlevel 3, but it freezes at "Starting nfsboot (sm-notify)".
Humm... I think there was an option to boot each service one by one, asking whether run it or not. It can be done via: PROMPT_FOR_CONFIRM="no" in /etc/sysconfig/boot, but I thought there was an option on the grub prompt also. You could use that to bypass nfsboot from starting. Otherwise, perhaps you can try "chkconfig nfsboot off" to disable that service if you can reach a console. Maybe the network is not running. The hardware will surely be different, and configuration probably too.
Try running "top" to see what task ares being executed when it freezes.
I ran top and it froze the system! That might have just been perfect timing, though, because I reset and it again and it worked for a few minutes. Here's what was running when it froze (CPU was at 0%):
init ksoftirqd/0 events/0 kblockd/0 pdflush aio/0 kswapd0 reiserfs/0 kcopyd/0 bash top
All those seem normal to me.
Uptime was 2 minutes. Interesting... I reset and ran top again, and uptime was again 2 minutes when it froze.
It doesn't suggest anything to me :-?
If I boot into runlevel 5, I get an ncurses Yast which says "ACCEPT" and "CANCEL" and shows a big gray box where the menu choices should be. Choosing "ACCEPT" or "CANCEL" locks up the virtual machine.
That could be the video mode :-?
What would I do about that? Change a grub parameter? I tried vga=791 and vga=771
Dunno... - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkqHFyoACgkQtTMYHG2NR9UjXgCglltCOTLSOocS+WGWY8zfvVgs veMAnj3KEAJIUYdRXMuMK2rmR31mOImk =QgWY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 10:14:21PM +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Saturday, 2009-08-15 at 11:12 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 10:26:03AM +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On Friday, 2009-08-14 at 23:28 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
I can get the virtual machine to boot into single user mode, but it freezes after a few minutes.
Have a look at /var/log/boot.msg and /var/log/messages
Nothing gets written to /var/log/messages. boot.msg gets written, but I haven't seen any clues there. I'll look some more.
Maybe it freezes before syslog is started.
Did you try runlevel 3? Single user mode is 1.
I tried runlevel 3, but it freezes at "Starting nfsboot (sm-notify)".
Humm... I think there was an option to boot each service one by one, asking whether run it or not. It can be done via:
PROMPT_FOR_CONFIRM="no"
in /etc/sysconfig/boot, but I thought there was an option on the grub prompt also. You could use that to bypass nfsboot from starting.
Otherwise, perhaps you can try "chkconfig nfsboot off" to disable that service if you can reach a console.
Maybe the network is not running. The hardware will surely be different, and configuration probably too.
This is getting me somewhere. I've narrowed down the problem to about 5 possible items. Off the top of my head, they are: coldplug fbset kbd and 2 others I can't remember (I'm not at the system in question right now). If anybody else has any ideas, let me know. -Rob -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Monday, 2009-08-17 at 17:27 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
This is getting me somewhere. I've narrowed down the problem to about 5 possible items. Off the top of my head, they are:
coldplug fbset kbd
Those are hardware related somehow. Your guest is 9.2, which is pretty old, "coldplug" is no longer used. There was a hotplug too, I think, which was run to change usb devices, I think. I don't remember what coldplug was for. rcbset I don't have, but it does exist: it is used for frambuffer configuration. I suppose you can deactivate it (chkconfig fbset off). - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkqJ2T8ACgkQtTMYHG2NR9X2RQCeKS6deV7exIa8PzWGf12Ylt52 cOEAn1xorZEx9VhTdiObSmXIrpaeAmdr =F9Gu -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, 18 Aug, 2009 at 00:27:09 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On Monday, 2009-08-17 at 17:27 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
This is getting me somewhere. I've narrowed down the problem to about 5 possible items. Off the top of my head, they are:
coldplug fbset kbd
Those are hardware related somehow. Your guest is 9.2, which is pretty old, "coldplug" is no longer used. There was a hotplug too, I think, which was run to change usb devices, I think. I don't remember what coldplug was for.
http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/doc/suse/suse9.2/suselinux-adminguide_en/... and http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/doc/suse/suse9.2/suselinux-adminguide_en/... outline some of it.
rcbset I don't have, but it does exist: it is used for frambuffer configuration. I suppose you can deactivate it (chkconfig fbset off).
Another couple of things that might be interesting to consider; * vga=normal (instead of vga=0xNNN) and no 'gfxmenu' in menu.lst Basically the intention is to eradicate all 'boot' and console 'graphics'. * init=/bin/bash This boots you straight to a shell, without any of the normal init stuff. I'm not sure if this will be of any use in your specific situation, but thought I'd mention it anyway. * ACPI/APIC settings? Given that the system runs for two minutes and then freezes, I'm thinking... udev? hth /jon -- YMMV -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Hey guys, I'm back from vacation (I had no internet access for a few days). On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 09:38:15AM +0200, Jon Clausen wrote:
On Tue, 18 Aug, 2009 at 00:27:09 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On Monday, 2009-08-17 at 17:27 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
This is getting me somewhere. I've narrowed down the problem to about 5 possible items. Off the top of my head, they are:
coldplug fbset kbd
Those are hardware related somehow. Your guest is 9.2, which is pretty old, "coldplug" is no longer used. There was a hotplug too, I think, which was run to change usb devices, I think. I don't remember what coldplug was for.
http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/doc/suse/suse9.2/suselinux-adminguide_en/... and http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/doc/suse/suse9.2/suselinux-adminguide_en/...
outline some of it.
rcbset I don't have, but it does exist: it is used for frambuffer configuration. I suppose you can deactivate it (chkconfig fbset off).
Another couple of things that might be interesting to consider;
* vga=normal (instead of vga=0xNNN) and no 'gfxmenu' in menu.lst Basically the intention is to eradicate all 'boot' and console 'graphics'.
* init=/bin/bash This boots you straight to a shell, without any of the normal init stuff. I'm not sure if this will be of any use in your specific situation, but thought I'd mention it anyway.
* ACPI/APIC settings?
Given that the system runs for two minutes and then freezes, I'm thinking... udev?
boot.udev wasn't set to start during boot. I changed that, and it seemed to improve things. I'm still getting lockups when running important things (like the network), but I feel like I'm making progres. I'll do some work on it over the next couple days and report my successes and failures. Thanks for the input, everyone. -Rob -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sun, 23 Aug, 2009 at 15:11:26 -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 09:38:15AM +0200, Jon Clausen wrote:
Given that the system runs for two minutes and then freezes, I'm thinking... udev?
To elaborate a little on the above; What I meant was that 'if the freezes are more or less consistently happening at or around two minutes uptime, then it might be something that udev does at that time...' More specifically I'm thinking udev might load a kernel module that causes the freeze?
boot.udev wasn't set to start during boot. I changed that, and it seemed to improve things.
Hmm...
I'm still getting lockups when running important things (like the network), but I feel like I'm making progres. I'll do some work on it over the next couple days and report my successes and failures.
This reads as though you've got the system to a point where it does run stable, until you start $whatever? If this is the case, then I'd expect it to be 'simply' a matter of manually loading modules one at a time to see which one locks the system. In the case of network; Does VB provide alternatives wrt cards presented to the VM? If so, I'd suggest trying out different cards. /jon -- YMMV -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 11:28:17PM -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
I have a physical server running SUSE 9.2 (which I cannot upgrade), and I am attempting to move it to a virtual machine using VirtualBox. I have changed grub and fstab to reflect the new hard drive names (hda instead of sda).
I can get the virtual machine to boot into single user mode, but it freezes after a few minutes. If I boot into runlevel 5, I get an ncurses Yast which says "ACCEPT" and "CANCEL" and shows a big gray box where the menu choices should be. Choosing "ACCEPT" or "CANCEL" locks up the virtual machine.
What am I missing? I'm guessing it's a hardware detection problem. I'm pretty experienced with Linux, but I'm new to SUSE. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
-Rob
Thanks again to all who offered advice. I never got this issue worked out. I managed to track down some SuSE 9.1 installation CDs (a boxed set!) and did a fresh install into my virtual machine. That handled the hardware detection problems. Then I rsync'd just about everything except /etc from the original server to the virtual machine. It is not pretty, but it gave me the functionality that I needed. -Rob -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (5)
-
Carlos E. R. -
Jon Clausen -
Ken Schneider - openSUSE -
Markus Koßmann -
Rob Owens