Hi,

I see that the xen-duplicate-image support is discontinued upstream.
However, it would be nice to be able to duplicate images easily (one can
copy the images or LVM and change the configuration, or archive an
existing image with tar and use the tar file option of
xen-create-image), but it means doing several steps for this operation.

xen-create-image with the appropriate option could verify that a machine
is stopped to prevent corruption, and use an existing image or lv as
source to create a new image with the correct networking configuration.

What do you think ?

Regards,

- -- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16-2-xen-686
Locale: LANG=fr_FR, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR (charmap=ISO-8859-1)

Versions of packages xen-tools depends on:
ii  debootstrap                   0.3.3      Bootstrap a basic Debian system
ii  libtext-template-perl         1.44-1.1   Text::Template perl module
ii  perl-modules                  5.8.8-4    Core Perl modules

Versions of packages xen-tools recommends:
pn  reiserfsprogs             <none>         (no description available)
pn  rpmstrap                  <none>         (no description available)
ii  xen-hypervisor-3.0-i386 [ 3.0.2+hg9697-1 The Xen Hypervisor for i386
ii  xfsprogs                  2.7.16-1       Utilities for managing the XFS fil

- -- no debconf information
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IoXMr2FkfrusmXNijg+wlYA=
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  Yes.

  I think that this could be done already without too many steps.

  Stop the source domain, and mount its disk image with something like:

    xm shutdown source.my.flat
    mkdir -p /mnt/src
    mount -o loop /dev/vol/source.my.flat-disk /mnt/src

 Now you can install a new image via:

    xen-create-image --hostname=dest.my.flat --ip=11.22.33.44
      --copy=/mnt/src --dist=sarge

 The key here is to use the "--copy" installation method, which copies
 a directory recursively instead of using debootstrap/rpmstrap.

 (You might need to copy out "debootstrap=1" from the config file
 otherwise it'llconflict and fail.)

  I think that the --copy argument does exactly what you want already,
 if it doesn't please elaborate.

  (You might also be interested in the --tar argument which will
 untar a previous tarfile of a disk image instead of using a network
 copy.)

Steve

Steve Kemp wrote:

Of course. Actually, I did it several times. However, I'd like to make
it even easier (that what's wishlist is about after all) :)
And if the source vm has to be stopped, copying the image file is faster
  and the stopped domU can be restarted sooner. I agree that a lvm
snapshot can be done to make things faster, though.
proc, sys and big log files) over ssh on my xen machine and create a new
domU with --tar. Many thanks for this particular option, it really helps :)

Regards,

Hi,

why was xen-duplicate-image removed from xen-tools? This is not
documented in README as suggested by ChangeLog.

Thanks,

Roland

  It was removed since it was a pain to maintain, and because
 the same thing could be accomplished using the new --copy and
 --tar arguments.

  See :

http://lists.cvsrepository.org/xen-tools/Sep06/0094.html

  I will look at the README, presumably it was documented but
 then changed.  There is more argument in the bug you replied to
 too.

Steve

You filled the bug http://bugs.debian.org/377984 in Debian BTS
against the package xen-tools. I'm closing it at *unstable*, but it will
remain open for older distributions.

For more information about this package's removal, read
http://bugs.debian.org/561667. That bug might give the reasons why
this package was removed and suggestions of possible replacements.

Don't hesitate to reply to this mail if you have any question.

Thank you for your contribution to Debian.