Has anyone attempted to copy their linode into a VM Ware environment? I'm getting ready to upgrade my linode from Gutsy to Hardy, and I want to test things before I go through with the upgrade.

It seems to me that it wouldn't be too hard:

1) Rsync the whole file-system to a blank disk image. (Though, how can one rsync the whole filesystem when they have root login disabled?)

2) Copy a regular Ubuntu Kernel to the /boot directory

3) Install Grub on the disk image and reboot.

Sounds like it's worth a shot.

I just performed a similar upgrade (Sarge to Etch), and took advantage of Linode's instance-day billing to use a second Linode for a day or two. I cloned my existing node to the new one, upgraded on the new one (taking good notes, of course), and then was able to easily do it on the real deal.

But being able to have a VMWare mirror long-term would be very handy.

I found this while searching. I'm trying to do the same thing using virtualbox on linux as a host and have basically followed the above and have a copy of my filesystem. It was when I installed grub I noticed there was nothing in boot.

I copied a debian sarge kernel in and it gets part way through booting the kernel but says it can't mount the unknown filesystem (i've told it to use sda3). I have puppy linux running on the same virtual machine HD and it can see sda3 fine so not sure what i'm missing.

Does anyone know if there are some modules or something missing that I need in addition to the kernel (vmlinuz) and where should I place them?

For anyone else who finds this while searching. I got it working by first doing a minimal debian install and then copying over a copy of my vps. Seems to work fine.

Setting up the network was a bit troublesome, it turns out I needed to clone the mac to virtualboxes settings as debian tries to fix the mac address to eth0.

all working now

I'm contemplating setting up the same sort of thing, would like to be able to mirror a Linode on a virtual machine running under a Windows 7 desktop. Would appreciate any guidance.

My first line of guidance is that I tried Windows Virtual machine, and when trying to install Debian CD ISO image, it kills the VM as soon as you select any install option, apparently at the unpacking stage. I've successfully installed Debian on a Virtualbox VM but haven't yet figured out how to set it up for networking (port forwarding , localhost on my network etc). It looks like Virtualbox is a bit of a hack when configuring networking, if VMWare is easier I'd probably prefer that.

And then there's getting it to work as a mirror for the Linode. Pointers?

Thanks much.

Charlie

You da search-man.