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This question has bothered me for a while.

I have a remote machine with CentOS, which can only be accessed via ssh. I need to clone everything this system has and replicate it in my local with virtualbox. Here is what did:

  1. Clone the system by following steps/commands (dd) mentioned in this article. The command looks like this:

    dd if=/dev/xvda of=xvda.raw

  2. Transfer the dumped file to my local, and convert it to VDI format after reading this page:

    VBoxManage convertdd xvda.raw xvda.vdi --format VDI

  3. Create a VM with xvda.vdi

The VM cannot be launched, showing black screen and saying "Press any key to continue...".

Updated: See below dump from the remote machine. It seems there's no boot partition exists in the remote machine. If this, how can I create a boot partition in my local VM and clone all other partitions (I guess it's all about /dev/xvda) from remote machine?

[tom@ip-10-203-0-000 ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/xvda: 32.2 GB, 32212254720 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3916 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00057cbb

    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/xvda1               1        3917    31456256   83  Linux

[tom@ip-10-203-0-000 ~]$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/xvda1       30G  9.2G   19G  33% /
tmpfs           1.8G     0  1.8G   0% /dev/shm
Community
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Jeffery
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1 Answers1

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You may be missing a boot loader. You'll probably want to go with dd if=/dev/sda instead of /dev/sda1. Maybe you'll want to use some stop argument to prevent from dumping further than your bootloader and first partition.

Update:

Reading your df output, I'm guessing your source instance is something like a Xen Paravirtualized domU, which means there's no guarantee your instance has a bootloader or even a kernel. I'ld bet that a ls /dev/xvd* would only show partitions and no devices. And maybe you even have a /proc/xen directory?

Assuming the latter is true, then you should investigate on Xen PV to VirtualBox conversion. Which would probably involve installing a kernel and bootloader prior to dumping your partition. Make sure to backup your instance before breaking anything, ...

Also: your initial post told about dumping sda1, your edit shows a xvda1, ... Are you sure you are dumping the right partition?

SYN
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  • @vlastimi, thanks but can you please share more details? I yet used these commands very often. – Jeffery Dec 07 '16 at 03:27
  • I actually tried >dd if=/dev/sda as well but no luck. Please share the full command as you mentioned. Appreciate that! – Jeffery Dec 07 '16 at 03:36
  • ...or you could install a new boot loader. You have the partition, assuming all good, boot using a live OS and reinstall grub. – jc__ Dec 07 '16 at 15:18
  • Thanks for your updates. You are absolutely right. There're only partitions ls /dev/xvd* and /proc/xen does exist although the folder is empty. I'm not familiar with Xen PV and will install a boot loader as @jc__ said. BTW, all my work was about xvda than sda1. Updated the original post. – Jeffery Dec 07 '16 at 15:39
  • Finally changed direction and clone another vm which doesn't use Xen PV. – Jeffery Dec 08 '16 at 20:04