[Cialug] Nested virtualization

[Zachary Kotlarek]

On Nov 30, 2009, at 3:50 PM, Daniel A. Ramaley wrote:

> Has anyone tried running either VirtualBox and Xen on the same 
> machine[1]? Alternatively, how about running Xen within VirtualBox[2]?
> 
> The reason i'd consider this is that i've settled on VirtualBox as my 
> virtualization system of choice and have it installed, but a friend of 
> mine in Washington state has a Xen VM set up for me as a backup to my 
> servers. He set it up with a distro that is more difficult to manage 
> than i'm used to, and i think the easiest way to fix it would be to 
> build a Xen VM set up as i want it here, export it, send it to his 
> machine, and import it there. But to do that i have to have a 
> functioning Xen environment.


I think you're making this more complicated than necessary.

You should be able to setup the VM you want in VirtualBox, export the disk image to some common format (like raw blocks) and then import it back into Xen. Almost any VM can convert to/from a raw disk image, and within the VM there should not be any significant differences between the two hosts.

A google search to that effect suggests this command might be useful for exporting from VirtualBox:
	VBoxManage clonehd xyz.vdi xyz.raw --format RAW
and that other people have done what I've suggested, though I don't actually use VirtualBox so I can't vouch for either.

	Zach

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 2746 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://cialug.org/pipermail/cialug/attachments/20091130/e47eb36a/attachment.bin