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I've increased the points in the hope of eliciting some advice :-)<br />
<br />
Steve
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If I am reading this right, you want to migrate two physical 32-bit Fedora 8 servers into Xen-based VMs then load them under a 64-bit environment? If so, you will need to reinstall from scratch rather than backup because of Xen kernel modifications that are required as well as modules for the ethernet connectivity as well.<br />

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Thanks for your comment. Your read me right.<br />
<br />
I take this as meaning that I need to reinstall the operating system (in this case Fedora 8) because of hypercalls that are made from the VM to the hypervisor. But I then have something that behaves like a normal Fedora 8, right? So if I were then to restore into the VM everything except - say - /boot and perhaps /dev from the backup of the physical machine, it should - in theory - run?<br />
<br />
My problem is that the physical servers contain things like my e-mail server and my network storage which I need to be offline for as short a time as possible. Unfortunately I don't have a spare machine to practise on :-) And I don't particularly want to spend time at the moment setting up my e-mail server etc. again: the combination of Postfix + amavis + clamv + dovecot now works great but took forever to configure. The same applies to my samba and netatalk servers on the other machine.<br />
<br />
Steve<br />
<br />

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As for the reinstall, I would recommend it or else there might be underlying problems later on.<br />
<br />
As for the configuration, this most likely will be a trial and error. There aren't any tools on the open market (that I commonly know of) that would allow to convert a live site to a Xen VM. Xen really isn't a good platform for migrating to unless you are prepared to do a lot of trial and error testing. Most of the Xen environments I setup are via a kickstart configuration I designed, thus already configured for what I need to do (i.e. e-mail, web server, samba, etc).<br />
<br />

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That sounds to me like I should wait and see rather than plunging into Xen now. Or pay for something like VMware instead?<br />
<br />
I was expecting some reconfiguration, but I suppose I was hoping for a quick and dirty solution!<br />
<br />
My experience of VMs is limited to running Windows XP and Linux under Parallels Desktop on my Mac, but I guess Xen (and hypervisors in general) are a bit more complicated than that.<br />
<br />
Steve<br />
<br />

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That's what I was worried about!<br />
<br />
I have two physical machines, one newer and one older. I missed the chance when I introduced the newer machine about a year ago of &quot;going virtual&quot; on it. (But perhaps Xen wasn't up to it back then?) The newer machine has my e-mail on it , which is the one service I cannot do without, but it's also the machine that would have to have Xen put on it :-(<br />
<br />
I'm quite happy with trial and error when I'm doing new things, but I need to keep my basic services running.<br />
<br />
I need to think out a different approach to this migration. Thanks for your help.<br />
<br />
Steve
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When you are ready to use Xen, I recommend taking a look at the following URL. Even though it geared to CentOS, it does provide the foundation to at least understanding how Xen works.<br />
<a href="http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Xen/InstallingCentOSDomU" rel="ugc nofollow">http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Xen/InstallingCentOSDomU</a><br />
<br />
Here is also a couple of links for installing/using Xen under Fedora 8:<br />
<a href="http://sysdigg.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-install-xen-in-fedora-8.html" rel="ugc">http://sysdigg.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-install-xen-in-fedora-8.html</a><br />
<a href="http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Installing_and_Configuring_Fedora_Xen_Virtualization" rel="ugc">http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Installing_and_Configuring_Fedora_Xen_Virtualization</a><br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
As for the e-mail issue, I found this thread/link that might be of interest, just in case you do need to reinstall from scratch...<br />
<br />
Email Server using Postfix, Dovecot, Squirrelmail, Spamassassin, ClamAV and Amavisd<br />
<a href="http://fedoraforum.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-46540.html" rel="ugc">http://fedoraforum.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-46540.html</a><br />
<br />

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Upon some quick research, I found this. It's geared to using the VMware platform.<br />
<br />
Convert Physical Machines to Virtual Machines<br />
<a href="http://vmware.com/products/converter/" rel="ugc nofollow">http://vmware.com/products/converter/</a><br />
<br />
However, in the FAQ, I also found this embedded in it...<br />
<br />
NOTE: Experimental support only is available for Linux-based physical to virtual machine conversions using the Vmware Converter BootCD (cold cloning) if the source physical machine has SCSI disks.<br />

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Thanks for these links. I was familiar with some of them. The VMware converter looks interesting, but obviously only converts to VMware virtual machines.<br />
<br />
I think I now know how to proceed. It seems essential to have a free machine for Xen to experiment on initially and to install pristine OS images onto. So I have to free up my newer server to put Xen onto it. This means moving the services on that server (back) onto the older server for the duration. That I think I can do relatively quickly and without much pain (famous last words?)...<br />
<br />
I can then set up the Xen server at my leisure and migrate functionality bit by bit to new VMs on the Xen machine. My old machine may be slightly overloaded for a while, but I can live with that.<br />
<br />
Regards<br />
Steve
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<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
I have two 32-bit Fedora 8 servers in my LAN, each on a separate physical machine. I would like to move them both onto a 64-bit machine running under Xen and have each run as a virtual machine.<br />
<br />
Can I simply do a full backup of each server, load the backups into the virtual machines and expect them to work? Obviously Xen is going to have to be configured, but presumably I can configure the virtual machines to look like the original physical machines and thus minimise the amount of reconfiguration of disks, network etc. in the original servers.<br />
<br />
Or do I have to reinstall my servers from scratch? They both what I want, and I don't want to change something that ain't broke (apart from the move to Xen).<br />
<br />
I'm trying to get my mind around the amount of effort and time this is going to take and would be grateful for any insights and experience.<br />
<br />
Regards<br />
Steve
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</div>


I have two 32-bit Fedora 8 servers in my LAN, each on a separate physical machine. I would like to move them both onto a 64-bit machine running under Xen and have each run as a virtual machine.

Can I simply do a full backup of each server, load the backups into the virtual machines and expect them to work? Obviously Xen is going to have to be configured, but presumably I can configure the virtual machines to look like the original physical machines and thus minimise the amount of reconfiguration of disks, network etc. in the original servers.

Or do I have to reinstall my servers from scratch? They both what I want, and I don't want to change something that ain't broke (apart from the move to Xen).

I'm trying to get my mind around the amount of effort and time this is going to take and would be grateful for any insights and experience.

Regards
Steve

migrating physical 32 bit Fedora 8 into 64 bit Xen VM

A Linux distribution is an operating system made as a software collection based on the Linux kernel and, often, on a package management system and are available for a variety of systems. A typical Linux distribution comprises a Linux kernel, GNU tools and libraries, additional software, documentation, a window system (the most common being the X Window System), a window manager, and a desktop environment. Most Linux systems are open-source software made available both as compiled binaries and in source code form, allowing modifications to the original software. Over three hundred distributions are in active development, including commercially backed distributions (such as Fedora, openSUSE and Ubuntu) and community-driven distributions (such as Debian, Slackware, Gentoo and Arch Linux).

Linux Distributions

Virtualization is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, including (but not limited to) a virtual computer hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or computer network resources. Virtualization is usually the creation of a system that executes separate from the underlying hardware resources, or the creation of an entire desktop for systems located elsewhere, similar to thin clients.