Unable to convert Linux Physical Server

[pmarconnier]

Hi,

I'm trying to convert a Linux Physical Machine with the vCenter Converter Standalone 5.5.3 but it always fails at the beggining (VmCreationFault.summary).

Everything's ok concerning communications between the physical machine and the Converter, as for the vCenter.
In the worker log I get these issues :

[09488 error 'Default'] VmTransformerImpl::SeparateBootDisk: Unable to find VirtualDisk for diskId=fake-disk-from-vg(vg0)

[09488 error 'Default'] TargetVmManagerImpl::CreateVM: Vm creation failed with error Invalid argument : VmTransformerImpl::SeparateBootDisk: Unable to find VirtualDisk for an active volume

Here is what I get with the df command :

/dev/mapper/vg0-root  1,1G  594M  465M  57% /

/dev/sda1              99M   57M   37M  61% /boot

none                  1,5G     0  1,5G   0% /dev/shm

/dev/mapper/vg0-home  3,0G  1,2G  1,7G  42% /home

/dev/mapper/vg0-logi  2,0G   36M  1,9G   2% /logiciels

/dev/mapper/vg0-opt  1008M  587M  371M  62% /opt

/dev/mapper/vg0-tmp   496M   11M  460M   3% /tmp

/dev/mapper/vg0-usr   4,0G  2,9G  863M  78% /usr

/dev/mapper/vg0-var   992M  511M  431M  55% /var

/dev/mapper/vg0-extr   43G  1,1G   40G   3% /usr/extraclients

/dev/mapper/vg0-sftp   93M  9,5M   79M  11% /usr/extraclients/sftp

/dev/mapper/vg0-sauv  9,9G   90M  9,3G   1% /home/d/sauve

And the fdisk -l

/dev/sda1   *           1          13 104391   83  Linux

/dev/sda2 14        8650    69376702+ 8e  Linux LVM

/dev/sda3 8651        8911     2096482+ 82  Linux swap

Do you know what to do to pass this conversion ?

[patanassov]

Hello

Can you please upload the whole worker log? It is not clear from this snippet what the problem is.

Regards,

Plamen

[pmarconnier]

Here is the worker log regarding my conversion try.

[patanassov]

Hello,

There is no '/boot' volume in the source information returned by sysinfo. Besides it reports:  Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

OTOH df has returned '/dev/sda1' as '/boot'. Is it possible it is actually on '/dev/sda'? If that's the case - bad luck, Converter can't work with unpartitioned disks. If not - please post the 'fstab', too.

Regards,

Plamen

[pmarconnier]

Hum I'm definetly not a linux expert, so I don't get how df can show /boot on /dev/sda1, but that in fact it is on /dev/sda :smileyconfused:

Anyway perhaps the fstab could help :

# This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details

/dev/vg0/root           /                       ext3    defaults        1 1

LABEL=/boot             /boot                   ext3    defaults        1 2

none                    /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0

none                    /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0

/dev/vg0/home           /home                   ext3    defaults        1 2

/dev/vg0/logi           /logiciels              ext3    defaults        1 2

/dev/vg0/opt            /opt                    ext3    defaults        1 2

none                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0

none                    /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0

/dev/vg0/tmp            /tmp                    ext3    defaults        1 2

/dev/vg0/usr            /usr                    ext3    defaults        1 2

/dev/vg0/var            /var                    ext3    defaults        1 2

LABEL=SWAP-sda3         swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

/dev/vg0/extr  /usr/extraclients  ext3  suid,dev,noexec  0  0

/dev/vg0/sftp  /usr/extraclients/sftp  ext3  suid,dev,ro,exec  0  0

/dev/vg0/sauv  /home/d/sauve  ext3  suid,dev,exec  0  0

hostname.domain:/u/c/cft/domain /u/c/cft/domain nfs  suid,dev,exec,noauto  0  0

[ivivanov]

Hm, in the log there is the following line:

2014-12-22T18:01:18.434+01:00 [09488 info 'Default'] [Converter Agent SysinfoQuery] successfully exec'ed vmware-sysinfo; result: Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

This error seem to be reported by 'libparted'. Converter is using 'libparted' for getting information about the source disk configuration. In the specific case seems for some reason it does not like /dev/sda and does not report partition details for it (most likely because of this error):

-->   <disk type="msdos" controllerType="scsi" bus="0" deviceId="2" capacityInSectors="143110145">
-->    <device path="/dev/sda" major="8" minor="0"/>
-->    <hwGeometry cylinders="8908" heads="255" sectors="63"/>
-->    <biosGeometry cylinders="8908" heads="255" sectors="63"/>
-->   </disk>

There should be partitions list under the <disk> element, but as you can see - the list here is empty, that is 'parted' did not return any partitions for this disk. Looking at the disk geometry it says the disk has 8908 cylinders, but according to the output of fdisk -l you posted, the last partition ends on sector 8911, which is beyond the end of the disk, thus the error generated.

As a result the partition list for this disk returned by 'parted' is empty and Converter skipped the boot volume, because it could not find appropriate partition for it in the available partition list, which later lead to the error you observed.

As I google'd for the "Can't have a partition outside the disk!" error I came upon this page - GParted -- How-to Fix Invalid MSDOS Partition Tables. There is a step-by-step guide in it how to fix this problem, but the process described there looks too dangerous to me and especially if it is a production server I would take a full backup of it before trying to make any changes (especially when there is an LVM involved and this could lead to a corrupted / volume because of inconsistent LVM volume information).

[pmarconnier]

Thank both of you.

I will talk next week with the owner of this physical machine to find out if this risk is too high or if it worth it.
I will let you know the result of our discussion.

[ivivanov · Accepted solution]

Hm, looking again at the offending partition, it is actually a SWAP volume. It should be pretty harmless to call swapoff, delete the partition, re-create it again with the correct size and call swapon. However, again as this is a change in the disk partition information, a backup is a good idea...

[pmarconnier]

Hello,

It's funny because this morning my colleague told me the same thing about the swap, so I've deleted the swap partition and the conversion has just finished successfully.

Thanks & regards,