Subject: AW: [vserver] converting a vserver host with guests to VMWare guest
From: Fiedler Roman <Roman.Fiedler@ait.ac.at>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2013 18:42:03 +0000

 Tue, 10 Dec 2013 18:42:03 +0000
> Von: Eugen Leitl [mailto:eugen@leitl.org]
> 
> I've got an old etch host with 2.6.22-4-vserver-amd64 with
> a couple guests on it I'd like to turn to a VMWare system,
> as the hardware is on its last legs.
> 
> How would you do it? Or would you just move the two guests
> off it first? I still have the issue of moving the mail
> server which is not virtualized but is running on the
> host itself.

I would not split the guests off the host. I had to do the same due to similar reason
and where I could not rebuild the base system to update kernel. When not restoring from
backup, to boot system with "init=/bin/bash" was simplest, then stream whole data using
"tar --one-file-system -c / | nc -vn [IP] [targetport", to new machine, where boot-CD
inserted. On the other side untar (of course with --numeric-owner to avoid trashing
the whole install).

Transforming vserver guests to vm-hosts is quite painful, depending how many host-related
packages/configs you have deleted. In that case it was simpler for me to use a 300MB
vserver-host installation with just the single guest in it.

Roman