[ale] LVM2 & VirtualBox Help.

[Jack Schneider]

On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 21:27:11 -0500
Ed Cashin <ecashin at noserose.net> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 11:11 AM, Jack Schneider
> <puck at dp-indexing.com> wrote: ...
> > Hi, Ed  Thanks for reply..
> >
> > When I installed VirtualBox it by default, as I recall from from
> > 2007, loaded the VM disks *.vdi into my /home/jack/.Vbox
> >  directory. I have now begun to exceed the fixed file sizes into
> > which the VM s were installed and also blown up my home directory.
> >   I have under Raid1 some LVM partitions set aside for the VMs.  I
> > want (need to) move the VM *.vdi and also to do a VBOX register to
> > the LVMs.  Per VBOX docs .vdi must be moved as .vmdk files... and
> > use the VboxManage clonehd tool. I don't seem to be able to do
> > that...  8-(  I may have in trying, made a mess..
> >
> > I can generate lvdisplay  & other outputs to a
> > pastebin.com or such page, to give you a longer list.
> 
> Hmm.  In a case like this I often use a symlink.  I wonder whether
> that would work in this case.  In the example below, assume the new
> storage you want to use is mounted on /mnt/big and your username
> is "jack".  You'd do this without virtualbox running.
> 
>   sudo mkdir /mnt/big/jack
>   sudo chown jack /mnt/big/jack
>   rsync -a ~/.Vbox /mnt/big/jack
>   cd
>   mv .Vbox .Vbox.orig
>   ln -s ../../mnt/big/jack/.Vbox
> 
> (Now make sure everything's the way you want it, then later at
> leisure, do ...)
> 
>   rm -rf ~/.Vbox.orig
> 
> Most UNIX-ish software knows symlinks are used this way, but I
> don't know whether VirtualBox really cares what the block device
> underlying the filesystem is or not.  I don't know why it would.  And
> if it doesn't, your symlink shouldn't make any difference to VBox.
> 
> I wonder why the docs want you to move stuff as vmdk files.  One
> reason I can think of would be that it's a cross-platform format,
> whereas the other files are system-specific (but not necessarily
> block device specific.)  I'm not going to google about it, though.  :)
> 
Ed, Here's where the above comes from.  NOTE: Rather than clutter the
thread.   Sent to  http://paste.debian.net/101493/

I'll look into doing what you suggested... THX.
Jack