HP Integrity VM - cloning

[sbrews]

I have a need to clone one of the VMs running on my server.  I have done some searching on the web and a few methods that may work, but... I dont have a lot of experience with HPVM (yet).   

One of the methods I found mentioned using "dd" to duplicate the VMs disks and then use hpvmclone to get the rest of the configuration.  This method says to locate the vg for the VM... see method 1 (or perhaps even method 2):

https://jreypo.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/cloning-hpvm-guests/

What I am not getting for method 1 is where the vg for the VM is located.  Is there/does there have to be a VG at the host level?  If I look in /dev on any of the 3 hosts, I only see the hosts VG, nothing for the VMs.  Should I be looking in a different location for the VM's VG stuff?

Or... if someone has or can point me to a good step by step how to (the above may be a good how to - if I can get past the "where is the vm vg stuff" part), it would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. This thread has been moved from HP-UX > System Administration to HP-UX > Virtualization - HP Forums Moderator

[Dave Olker]

Before attempting any method you might want to review the VM cloning portion of the manual:

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03477658/c03477658.pdf

Section 7.5 is about cloning VMs.  The method you use may vary depending on the type of storage you are using for the source VM and the target VM.  Do you know what kind of storage is used to hold the VM boot disk you are cloning?  Is it a whole LUN?  An LVM logical volume?  A file?  An NFS-mounted file?  Do you have any idea what kind of storage you're going to use for the newly cloned VM?

If you're not sure what kind of storage your current VM is using, try issuing the "hpvmstatus -P <guest name>" command and cut/paste the output here so we can help you determine the type of storage in use.

Dave

[sbrews]

The storage is SAN, and whole luns allocated to the VM.  The output from hpvmstatus is:

--> hpvmstatus -P casc9uvdb07
[Virtual Machine Details]
Virtual Machine Name  VM #  OS Type State
===================== ===== ======= ========
casc9uvdb07              12 HPUX    On (OS)


[Runnable Status Details]
Runnable status         : Runnable


[Remote Console]
Remote Console not configured

[Authorized Administrators]
Oper Groups             :
Admin Groups            :
Oper Users              :
Admin Users             :

[Virtual CPU Details]
#vCPUs Entitlement Maximum
====== =========== =======
     4      100.0%  100.0%

[Memory Details]
Total    Reserved
Memory   Memory
=======  ========
  32 GB     64 MB

[Dynamic Memory Information]
Minimum     Target      Memory      Maximum
Memory      Memory      Entitlement Memory
=========== =========== =========== ===========
   512 MB    32762 MB          -     32768 MB

[Storage Interface Details]
Guest                                 Physical
Device  Adaptor    Bus Dev Ftn Tgt Lun Storage   Device
======= ========== === === === === === ========= =========================
disk    avio_stor    0   2   0   0   0 disk      /dev/rdisk/disk89
disk    avio_stor    0   2   0   1   0 disk      /dev/rdisk/disk97
disk    avio_stor    0   2   0   2   0 disk      /dev/rdisk/disk109

[Network Interface Details]
Interface Adaptor    Name/Num              PortNum Bus Dev Ftn Mac Address
========= ========== ===================== ======= === === === =================
vswitch   avio_lan   vswitch1              16        0   1   0 b6-03-4d-0e-3b-67

[Misc Interface Details]
Guest                                 Physical
Device  Adaptor    Bus Dev Ftn Tgt Lun Storage   Device
======= ========== === === === === === ========= =========================
serial  com1                           tty       console

[Dave Olker]

There are many ways to duplicate the VM boot LUN.  My preferred method is DRD.  

I create a new LUN for the target VM and present it to the original VM via "hpvmmodify -a ..." and then inside the existing VM use the DRD clone and DRD rehost commands to duplicate the boot LUN of the existing guest onto the boot LUN of the future guest.  The rehost command replaces the hostname, IP address, etc. in the new boot image so that when the newly cloned guest boots with that LUN it will use the correct information.

After both DRD operations complete I un-present the disk from the original VM, use hpvmclone to create the new VM, present the newly DRD cloned LUN to the new guest and boot it.

Regards,

Dave

[sbrews]

Well, in typical fashion, I have been informed that I needed to have this clone done last week.  Does anyone have some step by step directions they have used in the past?

System A is up and running. 

Whole SAN disks allocated to it.

System B needs to be an exact clone

Whole SAN disks allocated to it.

can I "dd" the disks from system A and then boot system B with those disks (IP, name, etc would need to changed)?

[sbrews]

I've ventured out into unknown territory (for me) and did the following:

Alocated a disk to the existing VM that I wan to clone, got it all scanned in and visible.  I then did  a drd:

drd clone -v -x overwrite=true -t /dev/dsk/c1t3d0

This appears to have completed without issue except on the unmount.  A simple "drd umount ..." seems to have resolved that. 

The disk as then removed and allocated to my new VM instance.  Upon trying to boot, I get the following and then it just stops:

Booting kernel...

Disabling 8259s

Memory Class Setup
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Class     Physmem              Lockmem              Swapmem
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
System :  24570 MB             24570 MB             24570 MB
Kernel :  24570 MB             24570 MB             24570 MB
User   :  23002 MB             20046 MB             20125 MB
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Loaded ACPI revision 2.0 tables.
NOTICE: cachefs_link(): File system was registered at index 4.
NOTICE: nfs3_link(): File system was registered at index 7.
hpvmguestdvr load: complete hpvmguestdvr_load=0xe0000001648b1b40
hpvmdynmem load: complete hpvmdynmem_load=0xe000000164952d00
NOTICE: mod_fs_reg: Cannot retrieve configured loading phase from KRS for module: cifs. Setting to load at INIT

Boot device's HP-UX HW path is: 0/0/0/0.0.0
igssn0: INITIALIZING HP IGSSN PCI 1000Base-T Adapter at hardware path 0/0/1/0

    System Console is on the Built-In Serial Interface
W

Is there something else I should have done/need to do or did I just get a bad drd image? 

[sbrews]

ps - I also did a drd mount and navigated to /var/opt/drd.../rc.config.d and edited netconf to update host name and IP info.