Reference Information › Command Line Shell Reference Guide › Shell Commands › Utilities › hvm2pv: Hardware Emulation to Paravirtualized Appliance Conversion Utility

hvm2pv: Hardware Emulation to Paravirtualized Appliance Conversion Utility

This section contains the following topics:

Overview

Usage

Preparing for hvm2pv Conversion

Notes

Overview

The hvm2pv utility assists the conversion of an un-managed HVM (fully-virtualized) appliance to a managed PV (Para-virtualized) appliance. This utility can be used with iso2class to convert an appliance created using iso2class to a fully-managed para-virtualized appliance. The resulting appliance can be used as a singleton or can be added to the catalog. The process does involve some amount of user input and cannot be automated.

Usage

Convert unmanaged HVM appliance to a managed appliance. The appliance can run HVM, PV or both.

Syntax

util hvm2pv name=<app_name>:main.<instance_name> [virt_mode=<mode>] [os=<rd|deb>] [arch=<32|64>] [--batch] 

Options

name=app_name:main.instance_name

Name of application:class to convert.

virt_mode=<mode>

Virtualization mode for the appliance that is created. Valid values are 'xen_pv', 'xen_hvm' and 'vmware'. More than one value can be specified, separated by a coma. Default: 'xen_pv,xen_hvm,vmware'.

os=<rd|deb>

Specify the os of the appliance. Currently hvp2pv supports 'rh' (Redhat) and 'deb' (Debian). If no OS is specified, hvm2pv will try to automatically determine the operating system.

arch=<32|64>

Specify the os architecture of the appliance. Supported values are 32 and 64. If no OS architecture is specified, hvm2pv will try to automatically determine the architecture.

--batch

Non-interactive mode, does not request user input. If a the utility cannot proceed without user input, the operation will fail.

Notes

• If the application is running, the utility will displays a message asking if you want to stop the application.
• Both 32 and 64-bit appliances can be converted.
• Currently, only Redhat and Debian based appliances are supported by hvm2pv
  • Redhat based appliances include - RHEL, Fedora Core and CentOS
  • Debian based appliances include - Debian and Ubuntu

Examples

util hvm2pv name=centos-hvm:main.iso2class 

Convert unmanaged ISO2CLASS singleton to a managed appliance that can run in xen_pv, xen_hvm and vmware virtualization modes.

util hvm2pv name=centos-hvm:main.iso2class virt_mode='xen_pv' --batch

Convert unmanaged ISO2CLASS singleton to a managed appliance running in PV mode.

Preparing for hvm2pv Conversion

Perform the following pre-requisites to prepare the un-managed HVM for PV conversion. Perform this procedure before using the hvm2pv utility.

To prepare an HVM appliance for PV conversion Install, or verify the presence of an openssh server.

1. Install or verify the presence of openssh server.
2. Install or verify the presence of iproute2.
3. Install or verify the presence of libc6-i386 for 64-bit appliances,
4. Verify that sshd is configured with PubkeyAuthentication=yes and PermitRootLogin=yes.
5. Verify that dhclient is present in the appliance.

The following OS specific notes have been garnered from practical experience:

• Ubuntu variants:
  • The default route may automatically be setup on the internal interface. If this occurs, set the default route to the external interface with:
    • route del default
    • route add default gw IP eth0 where IP is the IP address of the gateway on the external interface
  • During the iso2class install of Ubuntu, after configuring the external interface:
    • apt-get remove network-manager
    • apt-get install openssh-server
• Debian 5.0.1 apt-get install openssh-server may not succeed in installing from the cd-rom device when the ISO image is mounted on the running OS because the ISO volume is not recognized as the cd-rom. To work around this:
  • mv /media/cdrom0 /media/was_cdrom0
  • ln -s /media/Debian\ 5.0.1\ i386\ Bin-1/ /media/cdrom0
  • apt-get install openssh-server
  • rm -f /media/cdrom0
  • mv /media/was_cdrom0 /media/cdrom0

Notes

Supported Operating systems

• Currently only Red Hat based (RHEL, Fedora, CentOS) and Debian based (Debian, Ubuntu) distros are supported.

Debugging Appliance Start issues

If you are trying to start an appliance that is converted from HVM to PV using hvm2pv and the appliance fails to start within the boot timeout, verify the following:

• openssh-server
  • Verify that openssh-server is installed during OS install or immediately after, before using hvm2pv
• NetworkManager
  • Verify NetworkManager was disabled/removed before using hvm2pv on an Ubuntu appliance
• libc6-i386
  • For a 64-bit appliance, verify that libc6-i386 package is installed during OS install or immediately after, before using hvm2pv
• iproute2
  • Verify that iproute2 package is installed during OS install or immediately after, before using hvm2pv
• dhclient
  • Verify that dhclient is present in appliance.