| virt-p2v-make-kickstart(1) | Virtualization Support | virt-p2v-make-kickstart(1) |
virt-p2v-make-kickstart - Build the virt-p2v kickstart
virt-p2v-make-kickstart [-o p2v.ks] [--proxy=http://...] repo [repo...]
virt-p2v(1) converts a physical machine to run virtualized on KVM, managed by libvirt, OpenStack, oVirt, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation (RHEV), or one of the other targets supported by virt-v2v(1).
Kickstart is a format used by Red Hat-derived distributions (such as Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Scientific Linux, and others) to describe how to make live CDs, install the distro, make "Spins" and so on. It is driven by a kickstart file.
virt-p2v-make-kickstart builds a kickstart file which can be used to build a bootable P2V ISO, live CD, USB key, or PXE image. This tool only builds the kickstart file, but this manual page describes some of the ways you can use the kickstart file.
The root user on the disk image uses "p2v" as its initial password.
Using virt-p2v-make-kickstart is very simple:
virt-p2v-make-kickstart fedora
will build a kickstart file for Fedora. The kickstart file will be called p2v.ks and located in the current directory.
The parameters are a list of one or more repositories. Some built-in repositories are available: "fedora", "rawhide", "koji" or "rhel-VERSION" (eg. "rhel-7.1"). You can also use a URL as a parameter to point to a repository, for example:
virt-p2v-make-kickstart https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/21/Everything/x86_64/os/
To control the name of the output file, use the -o parameter. To tell kickstart to use a proxy server or web cache to download files, use the --proxy parameter.
Once you have the kickstart file, you can use livecd-creator(8) to make a live CD:
sudo livecd-creator p2v.ks
Before running this note that you should probably run "livecd-creator" in a disposable virtual machine for these reasons:
This requires "spin-livecd" permissions on Koji, which are not given out usually, even to Fedora packagers. However assuming you have been given these permissions (or have your own Koji instance, I guess), then you can do:
koji spin-livecd [--scratch] virt-p2v 1.XX.YY rawhide x86_64 p2v.ks
Use the livecd-iso-to-disk(8) program to convert the ISO created above to a USB key:
sudo livecd-iso-to-disk livecd-p2v.iso /dev/sdX
Use the "livecd-iso-to-pxeboot" program to convert the ISO created above to a PXE boot image.
sudo livecd-iso-to-pxeboot livecd-p2v.iso
This creates a "tftpboot" subdirectory under the current directory containing the files required to PXE boot virt-p2v:
$ ls -1R tftpboot/ tftpboot/: initrd0.img pxelinux.0 pxelinux.cfg/ vmlinuz0 tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg: default
Virt-p2v can convert any 32 or 64 bit guest, regardless of whether virt-p2v itself is built as a 32 or 64 bit binary. The only restriction is that 64 bit virt-p2v cannot run on 32 bit hardware.
Old virt-p2v 0.9 was always built as a 32 bit (i686) ISO. This meant that the CD could be booted on any 32- or 64-bit i686 or x86-64 hardware, and could convert any guest. The old virt-p2v ISO shipped by Red Hat was based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.
Since RHEL 7 dropped support for 32 bit machines, current virt-p2v on RHEL can only be built for 64 bit. It cannot run on old 32 bit only hardware.
Fedora virt-p2v ISOs are generally built for 32 bit, so like the old RHEL 6-based virt-p2v 0.9 they can boot on any hardware.
You can use qemu to test-boot the P2V ISO:
qemu-kvm -m 1024 -hda /tmp/guest.img -cdrom /tmp/livecd-p2v.iso -boot d
Note that "-hda" is the (virtual) system that you want to convert (for test purposes). It could be any guest type supported by virt-v2v(1), including Windows or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
qemu-kvm \
-m 4096 -hda /tmp/guest.img \
-boot n \
-netdev user,id=unet,tftp=/tmp/tftpboot,bootfile=/pxelinux.0 \
-device virtio-net-pci,netdev=unet \
-serial stdio
Note that this requires considerably more memory because the PXE image is loaded into memory. Also that qemu’s TFTP server is very slow and the virt-p2v PXE image is very large, so it can appear to "hang" after pxelinux starts up.
You can install extra packages using the --install option. This can be useful for making a more fully-featured virt-p2v disk with extra tools for debugging and troubleshooting. Give a list of packages, separated by commas. For example:
virt-p2v-make-kickstart [...] --install tcpdump,traceroute
You can inject an SSH identity (private key) file to the kickstart and hence into the ISO using the --inject-ssh-identity option. Note that you cannot inject a key once the ISO has been built.
First create a key pair. It must have an empty passphrase:
ssh-keygen -t rsa -N '' -f id_rsa
This creates a private key ("id_rsa") and a public key ("id_rsa.pub") pair. The public key should be appended to the "authorized_keys" file on the virt-v2v conversion server (usually to "/root/.ssh/authorized_keys").
The private key should be added to the kickstart file and then discarded:
virt-p2v-make-kickstart [...] --inject-ssh-identity id_rsa rm id_rsa
The ISO can then be built from the kickstart in the usual way (see above), and it will contain the embedded SSH identity (/var/tmp/id_rsa).
When booting virt-p2v, specify the URL of the injected file like this:
│ User name: [root_____________________________] │ │ │ │ Password: [ <leave this field blank> ] │ │ │ │ SSH Identity URL: [file:///var/tmp/id_rsa___________] │
or if using the kernel command line, add:
p2v.identity=file:///var/tmp/id_rsa
For more information, see "SSH IDENTITIES" in virt-p2v(1).
The location of the binary can be changed by setting the "VIRT_P2V_DATA_DIR" environment variable.
The location of these files can be changed by setting the "VIRT_P2V_DATA_DIR" environment variable.
virt-p2v(1), virt-p2v-make-disk(1), virt-v2v(1), livecd-creator(8), livecd-iso-to-disk(8), http://libguestfs.org/.
Richard W.M. Jones http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/
Copyright (C) 2009-2019 Red Hat Inc.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
To get a list of bugs against libguestfs (which include virt-p2v), use this link: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools
To report a new bug against libguestfs, use this link: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools
When reporting a bug, please supply:
| 2020-05-07 | virt-p2v-1.42.0 |