[virt-tools-list] virt-v2v questions

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Tue, Nov 02, 2010 at 08:36:17AM -0400, Kenneth Armstrong wrote:
> I have an export storage domain that I have exported a VM to.
> Supposedly, according to the RHEV documentation, it is exported as an
> OVF format.  However, it creates the disk images as logical volumes on
> the export domain, with GUID's instead of easy to understand names.
> What I am attempting to do is find a way to use virt-v2v to pull the
> VM off of my export storage domain and convert it into a KVM VM to
> store on an external hard drive as another layer of backup.

For a backup, you shouldn't use virt-v2v because (a) it won't work --
it's meaningless to v2v from KVM to KVM and (b) if it does work it's
bound to break or reconfigure your guest in some way that you don't
want.

Now you can find out what your disk images contain easily enough using
virt-inspector:

  http://libguestfs.org/virt-inspector.1.html

or perhaps by trying to extract the hostname:

  https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/tip-get-the-hostname-of-a-guest/#content

or some other distinctive feature of the guest:

  https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/10/30/tip-use-augeas-to-get-the-default-boot-kernel-for-a-vm/#content

Then you can just back up the content of those LVs as-is.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-p2v converts physical machines to virtual machines.  Boot with a
live CD or over the network (PXE) and turn machines into Xen guests.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-p2v