Solaris 10 VM Converted goes into a Boot Loop

[stanj]

We have a set of images sent to us by a customer. Not sure of the software used to create the images.

The images were taken from various physical servers with various operating systems (Linux, Solaris, Windows).

We used StarWinds free converter to convert the images to vmdk files.

Using VMware Workstation, we are able to create a VM and add the converted vmdk as the system disk.

We then used VMware converter  to covert the VMs and move them over to ESXi Server 6.0.

We are able to boot a majority of the Linux VMs (RHEL 6).

However,  Solaris boots up and goes into a boot loop...

Is there a mod required to stop the looping?

Thanks

:

[patanassov]

Hello

Converter has never supported Solaris. You may try to boot from a live ISO and do the reconfiguration manually.

Regards,

Plamen

[stanj]

Starwind posted a response in another forum we need to check a box "patch hardware for the new hypervisor" ...however,

I have not tried this yet.

I also have seen other postings that show a lot of steps P to V, but we have a disk attached to the VM and it boots, but just loops

[stanj]

The StarWind option may not work as the patch option is only for windows images. 

So, back to the drawing board.

[continuum]

Hi Stan
>>> We have a set of images sent to us by a customer.
I noticed that you processed those images with different tools - probably this is a completely wasted effort.
If your customer has created the images with dd and if he provides disk images rather than partition images you dont need to modify the images at all.
In fact a diskimage created with dd is already in an ESXi-compatible format. Just rename it as image-flat.vmdk.
You can create an appropriate descriptorfile easily: just use this sample and edit 3 variables

### Replace

### $X with the size of the dd image in sectors (size in bytes / 512)

### $Y with result of $X / 16065 rounded down

### $Z with the name of the dd-image

### Keep everything else as it is

# Disk DescriptorFile

version=1

encoding="UTF-8"

CID=12345678

parentCID=ffffffff

createType="vmfs"

# Extent description

RW $X  VMFS "$Z"

# The Disk Data Base

#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"

ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"

ddb.geometry.heads = "255"

ddb.geometry.cylinders = "$Y"

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "8"

To verify that the images are dd diskimages and esxi-compatible you can use Linux.
sgdisk -d unknown-imagefile
should output the partitiontable of the disk. If this looks reasonable and matches the overall size of the disk you can assume it is ok to use it without any conversions.

Especially for Solaris none of the known p2v tools is helpful.
For Solaris you should prepare the Solaris VM and use a Solaris LiveCD for the first boot with the dd-image.
The manual modifications that will be necessary require in depth Solaris-skills - or good google-skills.

If you want to make sure you get usable images tell your customers that you want them to prepare the images with a Linux LiveCD.
The Solaris machine should be powered off - booted in to the Linux LiveCD and the image should be created like this for example:
dd if=/dev/sda bs=1M of=hostname-export.dd
If network to an esxi host is available the output can be directly stored in a VMFS-volume if you run this commands first
mkdir /vmfs-out
sshfs root@esxi-host:/vmfs/volumes/datastoreX/ /vmfs-out/
mkdir /vmfs-out/solaris-import

dd if=/dev/sda bs=1M of=/vmfs-out/solaris-import/hostname-export-flat.vmdk

This works very well and is very predictable.
Actually I use this with some modifications to do Coldclone P2V actions that only allow a very short downtime before the transition from P to V has to go active.
Ulli

[patanassov]

Hi Ulli,

Welcome back to the forum, I haven't seen your posts for a long time :-)

Your explanation is about cloning which seems to have already succeeded. The problem is with reconfiguration.

stanj‌,

I am not familiar with Solaris but expect to be similar enough to Linux. Let me explain my suggestion again in more details:

- Try to boot the VM that resulted from the conversion (the one that goes in infinite loop at boot) from CD (add it as device if there is none). Attach a Solaris live CD ISO image to boot from.

- Reinstall the boot loader

- Recreate the initial ramdisk. Have in mind that the virtual hardware is expected to be different from the source machine. The most popular virtual hardware is LSI Logic and LSI Logis SAS for disk controllers (IDE and AHCI are also options), E1000 and E1000E for network. You might need to adjust some config files before recreating the initial ramdisk (check the appropriate info how to this the Solaris way)

- Reboot the VM w/o the ISO and cross fingers.

HTH,

Plamen

[stanj]

patanassov

I am not a linux / solaris expert, so I hope you can explain in more detail.

- Try to boot the VM that resulted from the conversion (the one that goes in infinite loop at boot) from CD

   What type of CD should I boot from ?

   If this is the Solaris Live CD Iso image, where can I obtain one?

- Reinstall the boot loader

   What is the process to re-install the boot loader?

- Recreate the initial ramdisk. Have in mind that the virtual hardware is expected to be different from the source machine. The most popular virtual hardware is LSI Logic and LSI Logis SAS for disk controllers (IDE and AHCI are also options), E1000 and E1000E for network. You might need to adjust some config files before recreating the initial ramdisk (check the appropriate info how to this the Solaris way)

  Where and how is the initial ram disk created?

thanks

[patanassov]

   What type of CD should I boot from ?

A Solaris live CD

   If this is the Solaris Live CD Iso image, where can I obtain one?

I have no idea. Perhaps the one from which the machine has been installed. Or check in some Solaris forum.

What is the process to re-install the boot loader?

Again - no idea. That was a suggestion based on a supposed similarity between Linux and Solaris. Check in some Solaris forum

Where and how is the initial ram disk created?

ditto

[stanj]

Followup..

We confirmed that the Solaris images were made using the DD command.

I have had an exchange with Oracle Support as well.

They have pointed me to a solution that would require the physical Solaris server to be imaged using the old "Coldclone" from VMware, that is a bootable ISO image.

If I recall, this was something that was available back in vSphere  4.1 and may not be available.

[patanassov]

This is correct, cold clone is no more available. However the cold clone mode is still conversion. Conversion involves moving data and reconfiguration. The dd usage Ulli has described is good enough for moving data. If that and the steps for reconfiguration don't help, the boot iso wouldn't either.

[stanj]

Sorry for not checking back,,,I have been tied up on other projects

I am not sure DD was used.  The images provided are in the format xxxxxxxx.img.gz-00

On my Windows 7 VM, I access a storage area, renamed the file to .gz and unzipped the file.

This produces a file xxxxxxxxxx. 

I then rename it to xxxxxxxxxx.img and use StarWind to convert it to a vmdk.

I build a Workstation VM and attach the converted drive.

I will have to check to see if DD was used base don your response and report back.

On another image, which is the which is supposed to be a windows 2003 image, I ran the same process and run it through converter but get an failed error at 98% - an error occurred - FAILED Unable to find the system volume.

The VM did appear on under the ESXi Host, but it fails to boot - drop to PXE.

I booted up a Win 2008 Installation ISO and drop into repair to the command level.

I am placed in an x: directory which shows '''' Volume in drive X is Boot.

If I look at the x:. i do not see a boot.ini file

So, I am not sure if I am looking in the wrong place of if it is really missing

[StarWindRP]

StarWind's V2V Converter could prove helpful here: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/converter

It's completely free and is very simple to use.

[stanj]

Thanks we tried the StarWinds converter but had no luck at this point