Goodbye cciss, welcome hpsa!
During the upgrade from Debian Squeeze to Debian Wheezy you will be warned about the move (on linux-base package) from the cciss driver to the new hpsa: “Some HP Smart Array controllers are now handled by the new ‘hpsa’ driver, rather than the ‘cciss’ driver”.
Welcome hpsa! cciss really sucks!!!
Recently there have been problems with a mysql server (Smart Array P410) which reported the following error messages:
INFO: task mysqld:8009 blocked for more than 120 seconds.
"echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.
Sometimes the server became very unstable due to this kind of blocks (problem partially solved by moving to the deadline io scheduler).
The problem with mysql blocks was solved by a Debian upgrade (moving to hpsa).
If you use cciss on your servers upgrade to hpsa as soon as possible!
hpsa offers better performance and (good news) it’s stable! 😉
Debian on MacBook Pro Retina 15″
This is a fast&furious how-to about installing Debian on a MacBook Pro Retina 15″ bought on January, 2014¹.
Please note that this how-to may become outdated: last update happened on 16 April, 2014.
Please note that this how-to involves dangerous operations: if you choose to follow this how-to your car may burn, your cat may rape your sister and you may buy a windows phone… no warranty!
I choose to install Debian Jessie 8.0 because:
- it offers better support to the MBP Retina recent hardware
- it isn’t actually the stable release but it is pretty stable
- Jessie will be freezed on November 5 (“Remember, remember, the fifth of November!”) and will become the next stable release in about a year (May 2015)
Installing Debian on MacBook Pro Retina:
- download the Debian Jessie testing image (http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-builds/amd64/iso-dvd/) and create a bootable USB (dd if=debian-testing-amd64-DVD-1.iso of=/dev/sdX)
- boot your macbook pro holding down command+R
- use the disk utility, select the disk on the left panel (for example “251GB APPLE SSD”)
- on the partition scheme resize the “Macintosh HD” partition, drag the bottom right edge of the partition scheme up unless you have enought space for Debian (I’ve reserved only 50 GB to MacOSX because I really don’t use it), apply
- insert the Debian USB, reboot and hold down the options key (aka alt), remember to connect the LAN adapter before boot to Debian installer (hotplug wont work and wifi needs a non-free firmware), use tg3 as kernel module for ethernet adapter if requested
- select the EFI Boot relative to your Debian USB key and continue with the Debian installer (please note that I’ve selected XFCE on advanced options as Desktop Environment)
- when the installer arrives at the partitioning step select to proceed manually
- you can create the common partitions (boot, swap, root) but I suggest to setup an encrypted system²
- complete the install and reboot, you can’t boot Debian at this point, boot MacOS and go further…
- download the rEFInd USB bootable version (http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/) and create a bootable USB
- insert the rEFInd USB, reboot and hold down the options key (aka alt)
- select the EFI Boot relative to your rEFInd USB key, rEFInd should permit to you to boot your Debian
- if you can boot your Debian by the rEFInd USB key just return to MacOS and install rEFInd permanently (it’s easy and a good tutorial is available on its website)
Complete the installation:
- update your apt sources.list to include the non-free packages
- install additional packages³: apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree broadcom-sta-dkms
- reboot to use wifi and lan adapter
- to avoid random controller freeze you need to set a particular kernel boot option, edit /etc/default/grub and add the option libata.force=noncq (es. GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet libata.force=noncq”) then reboot your system
Please note that the Intel video card works flawlessly, the Retina display is simply awasome but… but you need to adapt your desktop environment to use it on an high (very high) resolution (2880×1800), stay tuned, I will post about XFCE optimization for high DPI display as soon as I can! actually after some time spent to try to adapt XFCE on high resolution I’ve choose anyway to reduce the resolution to 1920×1200 mainly because most of the websites are not ready for high resolutions (low res design). This is not an XFCE fault, XFCE works well with high resolution4.
Please note that if you make use of kvm virtual machines you can be really disappointed about poor performance (install system base of Debian may take hours): don’t worry, you have to use the ext4 mount options nobarrier or barrier=0. If your vm is already installed simply update its /etc/fstab configuration. It’s a little more difficult to apply barrier=0 during installation:
- start Debian installer on the virtual machine and go further
- when the filesystem is ready (aka when the installation of base system starts) use CTRL+ALT+2 combo to move on the kvm console
- type sendkey ctrl-alt-f2 to move on another terminal of the vm
- use CTRL+ALT+F1 to comeback on the vm and press enter to start activate the command line
- execute the command mount -o remount,barrier=0 /target to disable the ext4 barrier feature
- use CTRL+ALT+F2 combo to return on the kvm console
- type sendkey ctrl-alt-f1 to return on the usual installation wizard of the vm
- use CTRL+ALT+F1 to comeback on the vm and complete the installation
If you want to use an external monitor no problem, just apply your custom setup with the xrandr command, for example:
xrandr --output DP1 --mode 1920x1080 --output eDP1 --mode 1920x1200 --below DP1
Run xrandr without arguments to list your screen(s), their names and their available modes.
Happy hacking!
2014-03-21 added libata.force=noncq custom kernel option
2014-03-21 added some info about my challenge to use XFCE on Retina
2014-03-21 added some note about problems about KVM virtual machines
2014-04-13 added some info about the use of an external monitor
2014-04-16 fixed some typos and fixed last update date
¹lspci of the MacBook Pro Retina 15″ used to produce this tutorial:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Crystal Well DRAM Controller (rev 08) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Crystal Well PCI Express x16 Controller (rev 08) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Crystal Well Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 08) 00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Crystal Well HD Audio Controller (rev 08) 00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI (rev 05) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev d5) 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #3 (rev d5) 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #4 (rev d5) 00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev d5) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM87 Express LPC Controller (rev 05) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05) 02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03) 03:00.0 Multimedia controller: Broadcom Corporation Device 1570 04:00.0 SATA controller: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Apple PCIe SSD (rev 01) 05:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 156d 06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 156d 06:03.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 156d 06:04.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 156d 06:05.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 156d 06:06.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 156d 07:00.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Device 156c 08:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL3510 Thunderbolt Controller [Cactus Ridge] 09:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation DSL3510 Thunderbolt Controller [Cactus Ridge] 0a:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM57762 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe
²create an encrypted system
- create a small ext4 boot partition (1G)
- create an encrypted partition in the remaining space
- create an LVM group in the encrypted partition
- create two logical LVM partitions: the swap partition (double the size of your RAM), the root ext4 partition
³firmware package includes tg3 and broadcom package build the wl module needed for the wifi card
4you need to properly set the XFCE dpi option and you need to rebuild the composer theme because it uses raw images to compose its windows (download source package xfwm4-themes, edit the theme makefile and do some imagemagick tricks, feel free to ask if you are interested)
Debian Wheezy 7.0 on HP255 laptop
Debian Wheezy 7.0 works flawlessly on the HP255 laptop.
Install Wheezy as usual then:
- add wheezy-backports to your APT sources, add this line
deb http://YOURMIRROR.debian.org/debian wheezy-backports main
to your /etc/apt/sources.list (or add a new file with the “.list” extension to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/), replace YOURMIRROR with your preferred mirror name (or with “ftp” to use the main mirror) - resynchronize the package index files from their sources (you need to be root)
# apt-get update - install some updated firmwares from the backport mirror:
# apt-get -t wheezy-backports install firmware-realtek firmware-ralink - install linux-image from backports, please note that you may need to change the package name to fit the latest version available and your specific arch (take a look at your current kernel name with uname-r and find available backports with apt-cache -t wheezy-backports linux-image):
# apt-get -t wheezy-backports install YOUR_LINUX_IMAGE_PACKAGE_NAME
for example replace YOUR_LINUX_IMAGE_PACKAGE_NAME with linux-image-3.12-0.bpo.1-686-pae - install pulseaudio if it is not already installed:
# apt-get install pulseaudio
Ekiga registration error: Loop Detected
Today we cannot connect an Ekiga client to our Asterisk SIP server.
The error reported by Ekiga was “loop detected” (with a poor italian translation “rilevato ciclo”).
We found a solution by Asterisk CLI command “sip set debug on” and by inspecting the debugging log: Ekiga sends packets with a wrong address in class 169.254.0.0/16 assigned to eth0 (without cable) by DHCP.
As reported by RFC 169.254.0.0/16 is the “link local” block.
It was set aside for this special use in the Standards Track document, RFC 3927 and was further documented in the Best Current Practice RFC 5735. It is allocated for communication between hosts on a single link. Hosts obtain these addresses by auto-configuration, such as when a DHCP server cannot be found.
RFC specify that a router MUST NOT forward a packet with an IPv4 Link-Local source or destination address, and so Ekiga shouldn’t send a SIP packet with this kind of address.
Anyway, to resolve this problem, stop dhcp on a disconnected interface or remove this assigned address.
How-to Install Debian 6.0 (squeeze) Linux on HP 630 notebook model B815
Please note: this how-to is intended to be used with model B815 only.
There is another (old) version of HP630 that works well with default Debian 6.0 setup (it doesn’t need backports and video mode is configured correctly/automatically by Xorg).
HP 630 is another great notebook for business from HP with linux (or freedos) installed. Hp630 is not the best about performance but it’s fast with linux it’s ok with it’s easy and clean design. Its hardware is very good (almost everything is manufactured by Intel) and it’s cheap!
If you want Debian just install Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) with Desktop System, Notebook and Basic System files.
After installation run these commands from shell (as root):
cd ~ mv /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.original touch /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb-src http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb-src http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb-src http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list apt-get update apt-get -t squeeze-backports install linux-image-3.2.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 libdrm-intel1 xserver-xorg-video-intel libegl1-mesa libegl1-mesa-drivers apt-get install bluez-firmware firmware-linux firmware-atheros flashplugin-nonfree icedove ntp wireless-tools
Note that it needs backports repository and some updated packages to setup a correct video mode for its video chip (more info at http://backports.debian.org/).
Now you have a perfect business laptop with browser (firefox/iceweasel), email client (thunderbird/icedove) and openoffice (and whatever you want to install).
All hardware now works very well without any problem.
Enjoy.
fstab, boot, mount and STP: a big challenge to solve
Last week I have to fight with this problem: my host cannot mount by fstab at boot time but it mounts without problem after login by mount -a.
Syslog reports this error:
mount error 113 = No route to host Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g.man mount.cifs)
Online you can find too many posts about that error:
- fstab not mounting my cifs, I have to manually call mount -a
- unable to mount cifs (windows) partition through fstab
- cifs not mounting on boot
- …
In fact, it just reports that your host cannot contact your share-server ip.
And so we are going to troubleshoot…
1) Networking problem on host
Of course we focus on networking configuration of host: what’s the difference between manually call mount -a and fstab? When you manually mount, your network interface it’s already up (and you can easly test it with a ping to your server). But what about boot time?
Just look a /var/log/syslog and see what happens before your mount error alerts.
If your network configuration (/etc/network/interfaces or NetworkManager with “all users” automatic connection) it’s ok you can see something like “eth0 up”, “link up”, “eth0 ready” before mount errors! It seems ok!
To be sure, your can also use a fixed ip, but the problem remains!
My host use a fixed ip and syslog reports that my interface (eth0) it’s up before mount try to contact the remote server! WTF!?!? It use a fixed ip. It has eth0 up. Network setup it’s ok. This can make you(&me) crazy!
2) Networking problem on cable (bottom/physical layer)
If your network configuration is ok and up at mount time where is that fu**ing problem!? You can have a problem like this if you use a static ip address, a permanent up interface (without hotplug) but your cable is not connected. But your cable it’s just connected!!!
You can think that a mystical problem involves your packets but it’s strange that it happens only at boot time, after boot all is working fine!
As usual by IT, nothing is mystical: put your network tester in the closet.
3) No problem on host, no problem on cable, what’s next? Switch!
Modern switches uses the STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) on all ports by default to prevent bridge loops and the broadcast radiation.
When a device is first attached to a switch (STP enabled) port, it will not immediately start to forward data. It will instead go through a number of states while it determines the topology of the network. When a host is attached such as a computer, printer or server the port will always go into the forwarding state, albeit after a delay of about 30 seconds while it goes through the listening and learning states. Bingo!
Our interface it’s up and its configuration is ok but our switch don’t forward our host’s packets for about 30 seconds and so we cannot mount by fstab at boot!
4) Solution
A switch with STP is probably managed and your can configure STP properties.
My switch is able to disable STP globally or on a specific port.
Because STP is completely useless for a generic host (and only wasted my time) I have turn STP off on port of host. You can do so safely.
If you cannot turn off STP by port your can disable it globally but be sure that you don’t need it (or booommm).
If you cannot turn off STP on your switch (globally or by port) you can lower the “hello time” STP param to 1 (default is 2) but this can only reduce the listening/learning time (your host may always try to mount before).
If you dont want to turn off STP (or you can’t) you can remove the “auto” option from fstab and put a mount command like sleep 30 && mount /mnt/myshare & in your /etc/rc.local (sleep ensures that your mount happens after 30 seconds when your STP switch port starts to forward).
Happy hacking!!!
Note: 30 seconds it’s just an indication, STP can take usually 30 to 50 seconds to respond to a topology change. If your switch uses RSTP (Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol) it’s typically able to respond to changes within 3 × Hello times (default: 3 times 2 seconds).
Debian Squeeze/Wheezy (6.0/7.0) and Xerox Unified Driver v. 7-15
Xerox Unified Driver works very well and you can install it without any problem from console or by the X (gui) wizard. At the moment it doesn’t support officialy Debian >=6.0 (it supports old Debian 3.1, 4.0, 5.0 32/64bit) so this isn’t a real bug in fact but it can be a problem if you use squeeze/wheezy.
insserv: warning: script 'K07smfpd' missing LSB tags and overrides insserv: warning: script 'smfpd' missing LSB tags and overrides insserv: There is a loop at service rmnologin if started insserv: There is a loop between service rmnologin and mountnfs if started insserv: loop involving service mountnfs at depth 6 insserv: loop involving service nfs-common at depth 5 insserv: There is a loop between service rmnologin and checkroot if started insserv: loop involving service checkroot at depth 3 insserv: loop involving service mountdevsubfs at depth 2 insserv: Starting smfpd depends on rmnologin and therefore on system facility `$all' which can not be true! (...) insserv: Starting smfpd depends on rmnologin and therefore on system facility `$all' which can not be true! insserv: Max recursions depth 99 reached insserv: loop involving service portmap at depth 4 insserv: There is a loop between service rmnologin and pcmcia if started insserv: loop involving service pcmcia at depth 2 insserv: loop involving service udev at depth 1 insserv: loop involving service module-init-tools at depth 4 insserv: loop involving service mountnfs-bootclean at depth 8 insserv: loop involving service exim4 at depth 8 insserv: There is a loop between service rmnologin and mountoverflowtmp if started insserv: loop involving service mountoverflowtmp at depth 3 insserv: loop involving service mountall-bootclean at depth 2 insserv: loop involving service avahi at depth 8 insserv: There is a loop between service rmnologin and ifupdown if started insserv: loop involving service ifupdown at depth 5 insserv: loop involving service ifupdown-clean at depth 4 insserv: loop involving service fuse at depth 11 insserv: loop involving service networking at depth 7 insserv: loop involving service mountall at depth 5 insserv: loop involving service checkfs at depth 4 insserv: There is a loop between service rmnologin and ifupdown-clean if started insserv: There is a loop at service smfpd if started insserv: loop involving service smfpd at depth 1 insserv: loop involving service hwclockfirst at depth 4 insserv: loop involving service hostname at depth 5 insserv: There is a loop between service rmnologin and mountall if started insserv: loop involving service mtab at depth 7 insserv: exiting now without changing boot order! update-rc.d: error: insserv rejected the script header
To solve this problem you can:
uninstall Xerox Unified Driver, update your system or install your software and then reinstall the Xerox driver“If your MFP device is not connected to LPT port, you can safely disable execution of this script” so remove /etc/init.d/smfpd (and its symlinks) from your init.d and rc.X folders- Recommended:
“LSBize” the init script to fix the problem (http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts). Add these lines to your /etc/init.d/smfpd (at EOF is ok because position is not important, so you can also use a combo of cat /patch >> /etc/init.d/smfpd if you want to fix it automatically)create a new file named smfpd in /usr/share/insserv/overrides/ with the following content:### BEGIN INIT INFO # Provides: smfpd # Required-Start: $syslog # Required-Stop: $syslog # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5 # Default-Stop: 0 1 6 # Short-Description: Xerox Unified Linux Driver LPT Support daemon # Description: Enable support for LPT port service provided by Xerox Unified Linux Driver package. ### END INIT INFO
And just request support for Debian -6.0- 7.0 😉
update 2011-08-12: there is another minor bug in install.sh at line 1187 because –reload_rules is wrong, change it to –reload-rules
update 2013-06-14: mmmm, Xerox didn’t fix, so I’ve updated my post for Debian Wheezy 7.0
update 2013-07-02: thanks to darac’s comment I’ve learned a better way to do the work: put an override file in /usr/share/insserv/overrides/ as indicated by insserv man page
How-to Install Debian 6.0 (squeeze) Linux on HP 620 notebook
HP 620. It’s a great notebook for business. Hp620 is not the best about performance but it’s fast – really fast! with linux – and it’s ok with it’s easy and clean design. Its hardware is very good (almost everything is manufactured by Intel) and it’s cheap!
Above all, you can also buy it pre-installed with Linux (Suse Enterprise Desktop)!
If you want Debian just install Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) with Desktop System, Notebook and Basic System files.
After installation run these commands from shell (as root).
cd ~ mv /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.original touch /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb-src http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb-src http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list echo "deb-src http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list apt-get update apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree icedove icedove-l10n-it ntp wireless-tools apt-get --yes install linux-headers-2.6-686 build-essential module-assistant pulseaudio firmware-ralink m-a update && m-a prepare m-a a-i -t alsa-source echo "acpiphp" >> /etc/modules echo "ata_piix" >> /etc/modules echo "cfg80211" >> /etc/modules echo "iTCO_vendor_support" >> /etc/modules echo "iTCO_wdt" >> /etc/modules echo "pci_hotplug" >> /etc/modules echo "rt3090sta" >> /etc/modules echo "snd_mixer_oss" >> /etc/modules echo "snd_pcm_oss" >> /etc/modules echo "speedstep_lib" >> /etc/modules echo "tpm" >> /etc/modules echo "tpm_bios" >> /etc/modules echo "tpm_tis" >> /etc/modules echo "auto lo" > /etc/network/interfaces echo "iface lo inet loopback" >> /etc/network/interfaces echo "allow-hotplug eth0" >> /etc/network/interfaces
Now you have a perfect business laptop with browser (firefox/iceweasel), email client (thunderbird/icedove) and openoffice (and whatever you want to install).
All hardware now works very well without any problem.
Enjoy.
How-to convert an existing partition/disk in an image to virtualize it in linux qemu/kvm
Hi!
Yes, you can.
You can virtualize an existing windows/linux installation with qemu / kvm.
This isn’t a real news but here I write a very basic/fast tutorial.
Basically you have to choose between:
- use your linux/windows hd by moving it to your kvm host server
- convert your linux/windows to a kvm image (qcow2, row, ecc.) and run it on your kvm host server
Important note – 25/01/2011
Please note that when you virtualize a disk inside kvm, as we do in this tutorial, its OS find a new hardware configuration (fake/virtualized by kvm). This maybe a problem just because some operating systems (especially windows) doesn’t like that situation and panics with blue screen at boot & co©. To avoid this kind of problems make sure to uninstall specific drivers from your source disk OS before generate your image (especially windows!). Especially for windows (!!!) ensure to uninstall the IDE/SATA controller driver and replace it with general/universal driver. I have no problems like that to report for Linux os.
For the first choice the answer is simple: just use kvm’s -hda (or -drive) argument and point to your disk. Kvm and qemu can use a real hd without problems.
In order to convert an existing partition/disk to a qemu / kvm image (second choice) you have to follow these steps:
- shutdown your linux/windows machine and reboot from cd with a live distro (use SystemRescueCd to follow this tutorial)
- create a new folder to mount the image destination folder, it can’t be on our machine disk… we have to create our new kvm/qemu image from it!
mkdir /mnt/image-dest - mount a remote samba partition with cifs in your destination folder (mount -t cifs //192.168.1.x/your-samba-share-name) or mount an usb drive, or a nfs partition, or your smartphone, that doesn’t matter! 🙂 You only need to transfer your windows/linux disk image to your qemu / kvm host.
- umount your windows/linux partitions if one is mounted for any reason
- create your disk raw image with dd from winows/linux disk; note that you have to copy ALL disk, not only a single partition. For example, if you have 3 partitions (/boot hda1 / hda2 and swap hda3) you have to use dd on your disk device, not on partitions. Wrong: dd if=/dev/hda1. Correct: dd if=/dev/hda. Please note that with dd you can kill your cat, burn your sister and immediately join Forza Italia. Use it with care!
dd if=/dev/hda of=/mnt/image-dest/kvm-image.raw - fire up your kvm raw image: this may vary based on your source machine hardware configuration, if you have problems with missing partitions errors on your guest os boot phase just look at kvm / qemu -drive options (man kvm);
kvm -drive file=/path/to/your/kvm-image.raw format=raw media=disk - optionally convert your raw image to other formats with kvm-img
TIP: Note that this process can be slow if your source disk is very large and may waste disk space on your destination host, especially if your source disk is large but only a small part of it’s used. In that case you can use the qemu-img tool to convert the physical disk to a kvm/qemu image: this tool allows you to use the -S/sparse option to convert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparse_file). The image of your source disk converted with the sparse option will be as big as the source used space.
Of course before convert with the sparse option you need a way to set to zero all the unused bytes in your source disk: for ext2, ext3 and ext4 partitions you can use the zerofree tool (https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/zerofree) or you can try another way (an easy way that works with all filesystems may be create a zero filled file on your source disk that fills its free space). Another way may be use a tool like parted to reduce partitions size and then copy only used disk space with a combo of dd’s ibs and count (untested).
Happy virtualization to you 🙂
UPDATE 2014-07-27: added a tip about big source disks or source disks with a lot of free space
debian, grub-pc and /usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: unknown filesystem.
apt-get dist-upgrade and… BOOM!!!
Configurazione di grub-pc (1.98~20100128-1)…
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: unknown filesystem.
Auto-detection of a filesystem module failed.
Please specify the module with the option `–modules’ explicitly.
Generating grub.cfg …
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: unknown filesystem.
dpkg: errore nell’elaborare grub-pc (–configure):
Not good.
Bug Report and my solution, downgrade to 1.98~20100115-1:
apt-get install grub-common= grub-pc=1.98~20100115-1 grub2=1.98~20100115-1
(…)
Installation finished. No error reported.
Have a nice day!
Contribute
WebSource 