How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows
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In this How-To I'll show you how to clone your bootable Xen USB.
What's required:
- USB of equal or greater capacity than your existing Bootable USB
- imageUSB
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Shutdown your VM's and Xen installation.
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Remove your bootable USB
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Download imageUSB.
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Connect the bootable USB to your Windows System
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Do not format the drive! Click Cancel
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Launch imageUSB
- Select "Create image from USB drive"
- Click Browse, and choose location / file name of the image as "image.bin"
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Click "Create" and let it complete.
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Eject this disk; Properly!
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Plug in the second USB drive
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In imageUSB select "Write image to USB drive"
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Browse for the image file you created.
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Click "Write" and let it complete.
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Test the new USB and once it works put it into your D.R. Plans.
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I'm wondering, if your server supports two internal USB ports (or willing to use an external one) I wonder if you can dd a running disk to an image, then dd it to the other disk?
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@Dashrender said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
I'm wondering, if your server supports two internal USB ports (or willing to use an external one) I wonder if you can dd a running disk to an image, then dd it to the other disk?
XenServer 6.5 is using LVM for the root file system, so no need to do something so gouch as using dd to image drives. Create a physical volume on the backup drive, add the new PV to the system volume group, create a mirror image by making a new snapshot of the system logical volume on the backup PV. Remove the backup PV from the VG. Remove backup USB. Verify it boots, and stash it some where.
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@travisdh1 said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
@Dashrender said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
I'm wondering, if your server supports two internal USB ports (or willing to use an external one) I wonder if you can dd a running disk to an image, then dd it to the other disk?
XenServer 6.5 is using LVM for the root file system, so no need to do something so gouch as using dd to image drives. Create a physical volume on the backup drive, add the new PV to the system volume group, create a mirror image by making a new snapshot of the system logical volume on the backup PV. Remove the backup PV from the VG. Remove backup USB. Verify it boots, and stash it some where.
wow, that made my head spin.
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What about from an SD card? Similar process I presume?
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@ntoxicator said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
What about from an SD card? Similar process I presume?
SD cards are actually USB thumb drives. Only difference is where the controller is located. The USB drive has a tiny controller built in. The SD card has the USB controller portion hard wired to the mobo and you only plug and unplug the memory chip portion. They are actually the same devices under the hood.
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@Dashrender said
wow, that made my head spin.
Me, too.
I'm waiting for sommeone to dumb that down for a rook for when I need it, shortly.
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@travisdh1 said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
@Dashrender said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
I'm wondering, if your server supports two internal USB ports (or willing to use an external one) I wonder if you can dd a running disk to an image, then dd it to the other disk?
XenServer 6.5 is using LVM for the root file system, so no need to do something so gouch as using dd to image drives. Create a physical volume on the backup drive, add the new PV to the system volume group, create a mirror image by making a new snapshot of the system logical volume on the backup PV. Remove the backup PV from the VG. Remove backup USB. Verify it boots, and stash it some where.
Will it boot though? I didn't think the boot partition could use LVM?
Maybe it's something else. I know there is some limitation for /boot.
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@johnhooks Grub2 can read files from LVM, so it could boot without a problem.
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@Romo said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
@johnhooks Grub2 can read files from LVM, so it could boot without a problem.
Does XenServer support grub2? I know even in 7 they still set it up as a separate partition.
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@johnhooks said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
@Romo said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
@johnhooks Grub2 can read files from LVM, so it could boot without a problem.
Does XenServer support grub2? I know even in 7 they still set it up as a separate partition.
After actually looking at my server yesterday, it doesn't look like XenServer puts itself on an LVM partition. wth man, makes no sense. Even ProxMox got that part right.
Google doesn't find any LVM how to things on mangolassi yet. Guess someone should get around to that.
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@travisdh1 said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
@johnhooks said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
@Romo said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
@johnhooks Grub2 can read files from LVM, so it could boot without a problem.
Does XenServer support grub2? I know even in 7 they still set it up as a separate partition.
After actually looking at my server yesterday, it doesn't look like XenServer puts itself on an LVM partition. wth man, makes no sense. Even ProxMox got that part right.
Google doesn't find any LVM how to things on mangolassi yet. Guess someone should get around to that.
It might be a CentOS 6 limitation, I'll have to look at a RHEL system when I get to my desk.
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Did anyone ever figure out if you could do this with dual USB slots?
I was trying to think of a way to do this from home via iDRAC as opposed to being in the office.
I guess I could leave the "blank" USB in the other slot, then boot to a Live Windows CD, do the clone, then reboot the server.
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Was my post so laziness prone it didn't even deserve a response? LOL.
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@BRRABill said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
Was my post so laziness prone it didn't even deserve a response? LOL.
Likely.
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@scottalanmiller said
Likely.
I mean that's a thing, right?
What's the point of iDRAC if I have to come into the office?
Though I know a lot of people can't work from home, so we'll just say this is all theoretical.
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@travisdh1 said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
After actually looking at my server yesterday, it doesn't look like XenServer puts itself on an LVM partition. wth man, makes no sense. Even ProxMox got that part right.
And uses EXT4 and VHD!!!!
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@BRRABill said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
Did anyone ever figure out if you could do this with dual USB slots?
I was trying to think of a way to do this from home via iDRAC as opposed to being in the office.
I guess I could leave the "blank" USB in the other slot, then boot to a Live Windows CD, do the clone, then reboot the server.
Yes, that should work. iDRAC with the full license should let you do anything that you could do with the keyboard and monitor.
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@scottalanmiller said
Yes, that should work. iDRAC with the full license should let you do anything that you could do with the keyboard and monitor.
Though I am assuming a "Windows Live CD" is probably against all sorts of licensing rules.
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@BRRABill said in How-To clone a Xen USB on Windows:
@scottalanmiller said
Yes, that should work. iDRAC with the full license should let you do anything that you could do with the keyboard and monitor.
Though I am assuming a "Windows Live CD" is probably against all sorts of licensing rules.
Correct.
