This section contains information about the Physical to Virtual (P2V) conversion utility and details the usage, syntax and parameters on the command line and in a kickstart file.
The P2V conversion utility enables you to convert a computer's
operating system (Linux and Microsoft
Windows™) and applications to an
Oracle VM
hardware
virtualized
guest image. The P2V
utility is included on the
Oracle VM Server CD. You can
access the P2V utility by restarting a computer with the Oracle VM Server
CD. The Oracle VM Server start-up screen is displayed. At the
boot:
prompt, enter p2v, for
example:
boot: p2v
You can use a P2V kickstart file to automate creation of hardware virtualized guest images from physical computers. This section discusses the options and parameters of the P2V kickstart file.
The P2V utility converts disks on the computer to
virtual
disk images. The virtual disk images are created as
IDE disks (hda, hdb, hdc, hdd, and so on) on the guest, using the
original disk names. When you use a P2V kickstart file, up to four
disks are automatically deployed in the guest. Any extra disks are
converted and added to the guest configuration file
(vm.cfg
), although they are not deployed. To
deploy the additional disks in the guest, edit the guest
configuration file, remove the comments from the disk entries, and
map the additional disks to SCSI device names, for example, sda,
sdb, and sdc. The boot disk must always be mapped to device hda.
Any files on the guest which contain references to these devices
must also be changed, for example, the
/etc/fstab
file may contain references to
/dev/hda1
, /dev/sda1
, and so
on.
When you use a P2V kickstart file, at least one network interface must use DHCP. This is required for the computer running the P2V utility to read the kickstart file over the network. The network configuration for this network interface cannot be modified from the kickstart file.
If you want the P2V utility's web server to listen using a network interface other than the one used to initiate the kickstart session, the network configuration (DHCP or static IP address) for that network interface can be specified in the kickstart file.
A number of screens may be displayed prior to the P2V utility starting with a kickstart file. You can suppress these screens to fully automate the P2V utility. Prior to the P2V utility starting, you may see up to four screens:
P2V Network Configuration screen.
Language selection screen.
Keyboard selection screen.
Installation source screen.
Syntax
p2v
[
ks=
] [
ksfile
ksdevice=
]device
Options
The following table shows the options for this command. These options can also be used in a kickstart file.
Option | Description |
---|---|
| The name and location of a P2V kickstart file. This should be used on the command line, not in a kickstart file. |
|
Suppresses the P2V Network Configuration screen. The
|
|
Indicates the kickstart file is intended to automate a
P2V conversion. This parameter is required in order to
perform an automated P2V conversion and should be
supplied at the Oracle VM Server |
|
Suppresses the P2V Language selection screen. The
|
|
Suppresses the P2V Keyboard selection screen. The
keyboard parameter is the name of the keyboard type, for
example, |
| Suppress the Installation source screen. |
| Sets the end destination for the guest image. Sets the P2V utility to operate in HTTPS server mode to transfer the guest image to a running instance of Oracle VM Manager. |
|
Denotes a disk to be included in the guest image. The
P2V utility uses device mapper-based snapshotting to
copy the disk as a
The
The device to image.
diskimage --device /dev/sda
Sets the type of disk. Must be one of
diskimage --device /dev/hda --type IDE |
| Configures network information for the computer.
The
Sets the method by which the network configuration is
determined. Must be
network --bootproto dhcp
network --bootproto static --ip 10.0.2.15 --netmask 255.255.255.0 --gateway 10.0.2.254 --nameserver 10.0.2.1
The
The IP address for the computer.
The IP address for the default gateway.
The IP address for the primary nameserver.
The netmask for the computer. |
| Sets the configuration options for the guest.
The
The name of the guest.
The memory allocation for the guest in Mb.
The number of VCPUs for the guest.
The console password for the guest. This option is ignored by Oracle VM Manager when the guest is imported. For example: vm_options --name MyVM --mem 2048 --vcpus 2
--consolepasswd |
Examples
Example 4.1 P2V Kickstart File
An example P2V kickstart file follows:
p2v
cdrom
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
target --ovmmanager
network --device eth0 --bootproto dhcp
diskimage --device /dev/sda --type IDE
vm_options --name myVM --mem 2048 --vcpus 2 --consolepasswd password
Example 4.2 Suppressing the P2V Network Configuration Screen
To suppress the P2V Network Configuration screen, supply the Ethernet device on the command line, for example:
boot: p2v ks=http://example.com/ks.cfg ksdevice=eth0
Example 4.3 Suppressing the Language Selection Screen
To suppress the Language selection screen, supply the language parameter in the kickstart file, for example:
lang en_US.UTF-8
Example 4.4 Suppressing the Keyboard Selection Screen
To suppress the Keyboard selection screen, supply the keyboard parameter in the kickstart file, for example:
keyboard us
Example 4.5 Suppressing the Installation Source Screen
To suppress the Installation source screen, supply the source parameter in the kickstart file, for example:
cdrom