migrate unix to vmware

[harrysgm]

Dear All, I have one unix server Sco Unix openserver 5 and have one virtual server with microsoft windows.

We we are planning to migrate this unix machine physical macine to virtual server(virtual server will have windows 2003 with virtualization software e.g. vmware etc.Is there a way to migrate unix machine to vmware or xen or MS virtual server 2005. My company is planning to buy the virtualization software which will do the above job. I am really bad in unix so forgive me , if i am asking something weird.

pls help

thanks

HARRY

[continuum]

The howto for migrating SCO is not widely spread - anyway there is one VMware guy who occasionally visits this forum who knows how to do that.

I doubt SCO will run in Virtual PC/Server but it runs in VMware.

Maybe use google to find the SCO-related posts as long as the search function is broken

[Admington]

Hi there, have you had much luck with migrating your sco openserver box toa VM environment. I am currentley in a situation where i need to replace our aging Hp sco openserver 5 server with a new HP DL380 G5. I would much rather save the current configuration by using P2V to move the machine into a vm environment. I have managed to do this successfully with a desktop pc running sco openserver and vmware cold clone, granted I had to relink support for the blc driver into the sco kernel.I followed the instructions on aplawrence on how to install sco openserver into a VM environment and could only get it to work with ide disks and not scsi.My problem is that esx only emulates scsi disks.First prize would then be to P2V the exisitng server into a virtual environment.I have read that this might present issues with networking. I also saw the post on using Acronis but I cannot justify spending $700 on aconis when the sales rep could not guarantee that it would work. I've also heard chatter about Vmware supporting sco as of first quarter next year 2009 but i cannot wait that long to replace our current production server. hence i need to P2V the current sco openserver into vmware server( the free edition) untill sco anounces support for it next year and then buy vmware esx and move the virtual mahine into esx server. If anyone has been able to do this please post detail instructions on how to do this as i am new to sco openserver but my linux and solaris skills are helping me alot. Thank you kindly.

Message was edited by: Admington

[franc1]

Hi Admington ,

did you finally find any solution ?

I have managed to install SCO in my ESX server but what I would really like to do is a full P2V , keeping all the information as it is.

I tried adding a new SCSI driver to the kernel and relinking it but it doesn't work either.

Many thanks

[culbeda]

You can certainly do it and I have on multiple occassions with varying degrees of pain using information I cobbled together from the following sites:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/95323

Here is my quick and dirty method: (If you're using Workstation or Server, then skip steps 3,4 and 6-9 aka the hard part)

1) Clone the entire disk (with boot sector) using Acronis (I use version 9.1, but newer should work)

• If this doesn't work, you can try another cloning tool OR...

• UPDATE: Use the instructions here: (All it requires is connectivity between the machines and a couple of a pair of Knoppix CD (or other live distrros)

slave% nc -l -p 9000 | dd of=/dev/sda (Replace /dev/sda with actual drive on your slave machine)

master% dd if=/dev/sda | nc 192.168.0.254 9000 (replace IP address with the IP address of the slave)

This process pipes dd read data over a netcat connection and and receiver reads that port and writes it to destination drive. (In my case, I had to use /dev/sdb on the source machine and /dev/sda on the destination.)

2) Create a VM with OS type "Other 32-bit" using Buslogic for SCSI

• For VMware Server/Workstation, use IDE disks (to avoid the hassle coming up with Buslogic drivers)

3) Download the Buslogic driver from:

4) Resize the image to 720K (required or it won't read on ESX/ESXi) using dd

dd if=blc_3.05.1.btld.img of=blc_3.05.1-vmw1.btld.img bs=720k count=1

(dd for Windows available at: )

5) Clone the disk image to the VM (you'll need to upload and mount an ISO for whatever disk you used to make the image and the floppy if using ESX/ESXi)

6) Boot the VM and at the Boot: prompt and find the floppy drive by typing "dir fd()" and "dir fd(64)". If you see files pop up, you've got the right one.

7) Run the following command (this is where I break with most of the instructions out there):

unix.install link=fd()blc Sdsk=blc(0,0,0,0) root=hd(42) dump=hd(41) swap=hd(41)

or

unix.install link=fd(64)blc Sdsk=blc(0,0,0,0) root=hd(42) dump=hd(41) swap=hd(41)

😎 Login in SINGLE USER MODE using CTRL-D and enter your root PW and run the following:

vi /etc/conf/cf.d/mscsi and add a line that says:

blc Sdsk 0 0 0 0

(Comment out any other lines that don't start with "wd" and save)

mount -r /dev/fd0 /mnt

btldinstall /mnt

(answer yes to everything, including rebuilding the kernel)

vi /etc/default/boot (change the boot string line to read and save:)

DEFBOOTSTR=hd(40)unix swap=hd(41) dump=hd(41) root=hd(42) disable=usb_uhci,usb_ohci,usb_ehci

9) Reboot the system

10) Login and follow the instructions for changing / cleaning up the NIC configuration:

At that point, you should be all set. If you are able to load the driver but you stil can't boot due to an error 22, then your partitions are probably whacked and you need to try another method to image it. I have had this happen once. It is also recommended that you clean up any tape drives, cron jobs for hte backups, etc. But compared to getting the Buslink driver to work, that's a piece of cake.

If you decide to follow the other instructions in the links at the top of the page, you will almost certainly run out of memory trying to boot using the defbootstr method instead of the unix.install method. (You're welcome to waste your time trying, however.)

Sorry for the rather disorganized presention of the data. I need to work up a full version of this and put it elsewhere.

Regardless, good luck and let me know if that works for you.

[franc1]

Hey Cubelda many thanks for your complete and really nice step by step answer.

Finally I managed to do the migration but doing a fresh SCO installation and recovering the data from a backup.

I lost a lot of time trying to do a P2V and I couldn't make it work .Basically , I guess , the main problem I had was , the soft I used to make the image.

I used Clonezilla, and after recovering the image I tried using the comands you mention in step 7:

unix.install link=fd()blc Sdsk=blc(0,0,0,0) root=hd(42) dump=hd(41) swap=hd(41)

or

unix.install link=fd(64)blc Sdsk=blc(0,0,0,0) root=hd(42) dump=hd(41) swap=hd(41)

....But never works for me because it couldn't find the '/boot' partition

I boot with the ' recovery boot system floppy ' and run 'fdisk' ( trying to mount manually the /boot partition anywhere) but I saw that all partitons were detected as NONFS ( nor EAFS , eitherHTFS ..) .

That's why I think that the image soft was the main problem.

If I have time I will try to do it again and see if using a new soft to make the image can solve my problem

Again many thanks for your answer

[culbeda]

Sorry to hear that. That's similar to the issue that I saw using Acronis on ONE of the machines. I think an easier way to discover that this might have happened is to try converting it to a VM under Workstation or Server first and using IDE disks.

Just out of curiosity, what type of hardware were you using originally? I've converted a handful of ACER servers running 5.05 without issue. I didn't start having the problems you described until I tried to migrate an IBM server running 5.07 (I can't remember the model of the server off-hand).

[pentolino]

Hello,

I'm trying to virtualize my Sco Unix 5.0.5 to VmWare server 2.0.3 following your instructions.

I tried a simpler way: I cloned the HDs in ScoUnix with Acronis bootable disk, choosing the sector by sector way, and creating a .tib backup on a network drive.

I tried to import this backup into the new virtual machine, using the but I got a kernel panic..

Do I have to recreate 3 IDE phisical disk with the exact same dimension of the 3 partition on the ScoUnix and have the 3 partition respectively into those 3 new disks?

any other advice, based on .TIB file? (this .TIB version is unrecognized by VmWare Converter...)

thanks

[PaulSvirin]

Once it was discussed here about migrating SCO to VMware. See here: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/49487

---

Paul Svirin

StarWind Software developer ( http://www.starwindsoftware.com )

[pentolino]

UPDATE:

I ghosted with ghost 11.5 and Acronis my SCSI ScoUnix 5.0.5 disc.

I create an "other" virtual machine on VmWare and restore data on a virtual HD.

Result=

boot not found Cannot open Stage 1 boot failure: error loading hd(40)/boot.

Some questions:

- I haven't followed those steps from Culbeda because I didn't understand what did he meant!

Can you help me about it explaining in the simpler possible way? (i'm a unix novice..) Is it some way to rewrite the boot sector? How can I execute those command if my ghost doesn't boot?

+"slave% nc -l -p 9000 | dd of=/dev/sda (Replace /dev/sda with actual drive on your slave machine) +

master% dd if=/dev/sda | nc 192.168.0.254 9000 (replace IP address with the IP address of the slave)

+This process pipes dd read data over a netcat connection and and

receiver reads that port and writes it to destination drive. (In my

case, I had to use /dev/sdb on the source machine and /dev/sda on the

destination.)"+

- Is there some simple way to let this ghost boot if I get this

message, such as a boot disk like the way described here?

(http://docsrv.sco.com:507/en/HANDBOOK/sstT.boot_not_found.html)Do I

have to create the boot disk from the original machine? If so, doesn't

it inherite the original BTLD controller disc driver that are different

from the one used in the VM environment? (wd in virtual vs. ips in

phisical) making my VM unable to boot like now (maybe giving a kernel

panic or something similiar)?

- I created a

bigger than original virtual disc (the original one was a SCSI, the

virtual one is an IDE on 0:0 channel); may it be the cause? Have I to

recreate a virtual disc with the same geometry of the origianl SCSI one?

thanks very much,

I need to convert this SCo Unix server and I'm going totally crazy about it...pls help me!

[pentolino]

UPDATE 2

Booting up with a recovery boot floppy it tells me on HD initialization:

Panic: srmountfun – Error 19 mounting rootdev (1/42)

[theknut]

This is easy. @ the point with the btldinstall there is a point "Do you want to preserve the host Adapter Configuration Information?" you certainly said "Y" like me 4 hours ago. Thats pain !!! You gotta say "N" and then "Y" till the process ends. Did a P2V from SCO5.0.5 some hours ago. With success.

Look @ this link

http://www.rcmb.ca/sco-restore.htm

they made it with power edge, i did it with vmware converter boot-cd. Worked fine. After i had the VM(image) i did it like shown upper in this thread, just with the difference @ the btldinstall. It works perfect. In somw cases the convertercd didn't worked @ P2Vs last year, but today i had my perfect friday.

by the way... i do have 5 SCO 5.0.5 running in Vsphere and 3 on ESXi