Copy your Trixbox to VMWare

I found a way to make a copy of my real life Trixbox set into a virtual machine using VMWare. Like others I tried it automatically, but without success. This procedure will work if you have all your data in the main partition, but with some small adjustments it will also work if you've another setup than the default. The basics is that I use the VMWare workstation version of Trixbox.

I made a backup set using the following command on my real machine: "mondoarchive -Oi -E /backup -N -d /backup -s 650m -F -G"
Download the vmware version, delete the lck dir
Make sure you have enough space to copy the backup (you need a free space of a bit more than the amount of the backup). The 8 Gig harddrive wasn't enough for me, so I added an extra virtual SCSI harddrive in VMWare (also 8 Gigs).
Startup vmware
Make the new disk available
startup "fdisk /dev/sdb" (as it is the second scsi drive)
Enter the commands: n p 1 and press enter twice
Save the stuff with command w
Format the partition with "mke2fs /dev/sdb1"
Mount the new disk. Use "mkdir /backup" and then "mount -t ext2 /dev/sdb1 /backup"
Via "df" you see the disk layout results
install mondo
yum -y install cdrecord
yum install mkiofs
rpm -ivh ftp://ftp.mondorescue.org/rhel/5/afio-2.4.7-1.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh ftp://ftp.mondorescue.org/rhel/5/buffer-1.19-1.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh ftp://ftp.mondorescue.org/rhel/5/mindi-busybox-1.7.3-1.rhel5.i386...
rpm -ivh ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/linux/fedoralegacy/redhat/7.2/os/i3...
rpm -ivh ftp://ftp.mondorescue.org/rhel/5/mindi-2.0.0-1.rhel5.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh ftp://ftp.mondorescue.org/rhel/5/mondo-2.2.5-1.rhel5.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh ftp://ftp.mondorescue.org/rhel/5/mondo-doc-2.2.5-1.rhel5.noarch.r...
Run "/usr/sbin/mondorestore", enable the ISO in VMWare to the (first) backup CDROM
From the dir list, select every dir you like, but do NOT select Boot, Mnt, Lost+found, Root and Dev
Select restore path to "/backup"
Lets remove fstab via "rm /backup/etc/fstab" and mtab "rm /backup/etc/mtab"
Now is a good moment to save all this. Shutdown trixbox, stop VMWare, rar/copy the files
Now startup the VMWare set with a bootable linux ISO (you cannot overwrite files that are in use, which will happen if you try to move or copy the backup files to the root). I use Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.org) which is a cool tool to rescue desktops/laptops. Link the ISO in your VMWare to the CDROM, startup and press F2 at bootup to enter the BIOS. Change the boot sequence so that the Knoppix will be booted and save/exit.
Now open the Konqueror explorer. Go to dir media:/. First determine which disk is your root and which contains the restored files. Two dirs are worth investigating: "/" and "8.6G Media". Go to the "/" and you'll see it is your root (as it contains Boot) and it is called media/sda2. The other one is the backup set and is called media/sdb1. The dirs are mounted automatically.
Go to a console
Make yourself the superuser with "su -" (By default you only have read permissions)
Go to the backup dir. "cd /media/sdb1"
Copy all stuff from the backup to the root dir with ""cp" -R -d -v * /media/sda2". The command cp is between quotes, otherwise you're in interactive mode.
Check/repair your main harddisk for errors. Use "umount /media/sda2" and "fsck /dev/sda2"
Shutdown Knoppix, remove the ISO from VMWare and reboot
You probably see some errors passing by saying the hardware isn't found....
You can mount the backup drive. You can also remove it from your VMWare set (via its settings) and remove the relating vmdk file (I suggest to make a full copy first)

For me it works, feel free to comment.

Frank