Arch Linux

Flasher

Member

From: Bavaria / Germany

Registered: 2005-04-24

Posts: 126

Transfering my archlinux system to a virtual machine

Hello!

My linux system has 3 partions (/boot , / , swap) I want to copy this 3 partions to a new created virtual machine (vmware).

Hm ok... I thought I could tar the complete files and transfer it, but I think that isn't a good idea, because of the device files and so on...

Is there any strategy to copy this the partions easily to the harddisc of the virtual machine?

Best regards,

Flasher

jbromley

Member

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 268

Re: Transfering my archlinux system to a virtual machine

How about just do a base Arch install in VMWare and then tar up the parts of your real install so you can extract them into the base system in VMWare? Leave the /dev, /proc, and /sys directories out of your root (/) tarball. You will have to fix up anything the refers to the real hardware or hard drive, probably. I.e. change the modules you are loading in rc.conf, modify fstab, etc.

Good luck,
j

Flasher

Member

From: Bavaria / Germany

Registered: 2005-04-24

Posts: 126

Re: Transfering my archlinux system to a virtual machine

Ok, I think thats a good idea ;-)

but how can I tar the root partition to keep all rights and other "system things"?
And how to extract this?

Last edited by Flasher (2008-03-14 12:48:13)

tigrmesh

IRC Op

From: Florida, US

Registered: 2007-12-11

Posts: 794

Re: Transfering my archlinux system to a virtual machine

This might help:  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=35087.