#proxmox #linux

Prepare a new “empty” container

Create a new container on your hypervisor, I recomend using a template of the same OS to avoid as many problems as possible later

Copying the data

Use tar and excluding some dirs, you could do it like this:

Create a file /tmp/excludes.excl with these contents:

.bash_history
/dev/*
/mnt/*
/tmp/*
/proc/*
/sys/*
/usr/src/*

Then create the tar. But remember, when the system is 'not' using udev, you have to look into /proc/ after creating your container because some devices might not exist. (/dev/ptmx or others) (Not neccesarry if used with Debian 7.x template)

Before running this command make sure all critical services are stopped eg. mysql, tomcat, apache etc. (If there are problems you can also boot from a live cd to this bit)

# tar --numeric-owner -cjpf /tmp/mysystem.tar.bz2 / -X /tmp/excludes.excl

Extract the data

Copy the Tar you created to the hypervisor and extract it to the appropriate directory (for proxmox /var/lib/vz/private/VMID/ )

tar -xjf test.tbz -C /tmp/test

Adjustments

/etc/inittab

A container does not have real ttys, so you have to disable getty in /etc/inittab (i. e. /vz/private/123/etc/inittab).

sed -i -e 's/^[0-9].*getty.*tty/#&/g' /vz/private/123/etc/inittab

tty device nodes

In order for vzctl enter to work, a container needs to have some entries in /dev. This can either be /dev/ttyp* and /dev/ptyp*, or /dev/ptmx and mounted /dev/pts.

/dev/ptmx

Check that /dev/ptmx exists. If it does not, create with:

mknod --mode 666 /vz/private/123/dev/ptmx c 5 2

/dev/pts/

Check that /dev/pts exists. It's a directory, if it does not exist, create with:

mkdir /vz/private/123/dev/pts

/dev/ttyp and /dev/ptyp

To copy:

cp -a /dev/ttyp* /dev/ptyp* /vz/private/123/dev/

To recreate with MAKEDEV, either

/sbin/MAKEDEV -d /vz/private/123/dev ttyp ptyp

or

cd /vz/private/123/dev && /sbin/MAKEDEV ttyp

Make sure sure /dev/null is not a file or directory; if unsure remove and recreate. If this is not correct sshd will not start correctly.

rm -f /vz/private/123/dev/null mknod --mode 666 /vz/private/123/dev/null c 1 3

/dev/urandom

Check that /dev/urandom exists. If it does not, create with:

mknod --mode 444 /vz/private/123/dev/urandom c 1 9

References;

http:~/~/openvz.org/Physical_to_container

http:~/~/www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-open-bzipped-tbz-archive-file/