Converting a virtual disk image: VDI or VMDK to an ISO you can distribute

Thats excellent Alon, thanks a million!  It wasn't easy was it?!  I'm snowed under right now but I'm really looking forward to trying this out once I'm back in "iso mode".

TKL just keeps on impressing me more all the time.

I'm in the midst of trying this and I just now slavishly followed the "GOTCHA 2" suggestion of replacing the VM-optimal kernel with a standard kernel.  However if the ISO is going to be used exclusively for VMs, would it make sense to skip this step?

Hi,

Thanks so much for such interesting articles!

I propose another tipical scenario:

- You install a GNU/linux OS at secondary (non bootable) partition on your windows box.

- After try and setup a lot of things you decide to move your Linux instalation to a virtual machine....

The question is:

¿How to convert your secondary nonbootable linux partition to a virtual machine bootable disk???

Cheers,

Paco

I had partial success with this -- I was able to create an ISO that worked perfectly as a "Live CD".  I was able to run my appliance directly off the ISO.  The configuration console magically included a new "Install to Disk" option.  However when I tried this it got pretty far into the installation -- including seemingly copying the rootfs to the disk -- but then failed while trying to set up grub.

But I'll leave that to another post -- I think even the creation of the "Live ISO" was a good start!

Heres another couple of "gotchas" I experienced:

(1) Alon mentioned that you may find you have multiple partitions on your source VMDK.  In fact its probable that you will -- I certainly did on the Turnkey/Postgres-based VM I started with.  However I was using another TKL-based VM as the "working machine" to run the commands on and I had trouble installing kpartx here.  I switched to a Fedora host and was able to install kpartx ("yum install kpartx" iirc) and complete the rest of the procedure here.

(2) When I chrooted to apply the generic kernel to the rootfs, I found that I had no DNS (so apt-get couldn't find repositories).  The same might happen to you depending on how your network is set up.  Assuming the machine you're working on has working DNS, doing the following before you chroot should fix this:

cp /etc/resolv.conf turnkey-core.rootfs/var/run

 (the desired destination of resolv.conf is likely different on a non-TKL-based rootfs).

Hope that helps!  Heres the script I'm running to get as far as the chroot (its more-or-less as per Alon's directions except I've hardcoded the name of the partition in the loop device):

#!/bin/bash

echo Setting up loop device...
losetup /dev/loop0 turnkey-core.raw 

echo Adding a partition device for each partition in the loop device...
kpartx -av /dev/loop0

echo Mounting the first partition \(ie the rootfs\)
mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1 turnkey-core.mount/

echo Copying the rootfs from the mounted partition to the new \(development\) copy of the rootfs
rm -fr turnkey-core.rootfs/
mkdir turnkey-core.rootfs/
rsync -a -t -r -S -I turnkey-core.mount/ turnkey-core.rootfs

echo Cleaning up the mounts and loopback device...
umount -d turnkey-core.mount/
kpartx -d /dev/loop0
losetup -d /dev/loop0

#echo Setting up name resolution on new rootfs \(need this during chroot\)
#cp /etc/resolv.conf turnkey-core.rootfs/var/run

mount -o loop turnkey-core.raw turnkey-core.mount

=

mount: you must specify the filesystem type
 

:-(

This is the correct way to install the bootspash menu 

tklpatch-extract-iso turnkey-core-2009.10-hardy-x86.iso
tklpatch-prepare-cdroot turnkey-core.rootfs/ turnkey-core-2009.10-hardy-x86.cdroot/
tklpatch-geniso turnkey-core-2009.10-hardy-x86.cdroot/

Just throwing this out there.  I used it on a server to create an ISO with all of the goodies I put on there.  Never tried it on a virtual machine.  Will try soon though. 

This is a great idea, this way it much easier to be hypervisor independent. If you wanna go for VMware, Citrix XenServer, Hyper V, it doesn't matter. Thanks for sharing.

I stumbled across this when searching to convert my VM image to iso.

Then thought of an easier way for basiic users

Take a backup using acronis (VMware is to mount tib files directly)

Have not been able to convert a tib to iso yet.

thanks

This process is quiet complex and lengthy too. Is there any other easier method? I tried it and halfway through system got rebooted and lost all conversion I did. I had trouble mounting the secondary drive. And is there any preferable location to copy out the root file system. My operating system is windows 7 but the specification of my system is very low, running out of free space. Should I try again, is there any chance of crashing my system and losing all information?

Well, this is useful! I'm downloading a Chrome OS image (in vmdk format) and I need it on a DVD.  'Cuz I like to boot things on a physical machine.  Not a virtual one.

i guess this procedure doesnt work for windows vmdk? Do you know any way to perform this on such a vm?

thx

jeff

thx Alon for the clarification.

just for those who might google this page searching for the same solution as i am, there is a tool called "etboot" on the page reboot.pro.

this tool is able to convert a flat vmdk into iso (apparently no sparse vmdk).

jeff

I accidentally downloaded the VMWare version of BackTrack. VMWare doesn't let u access the wireless card, so bad for me. anyway, this step doesn't work for me.. I've tried evrything... PLZ HELP!!!

qemu-img convert -f vmdk turnkey-core.vmdk -O raw turnkey-core.raw

The result is :-

I think its partitioned :-

• BT4R2-s001.vmdk
• BT4R2-s002.vmdk
• BT4R2-s003.vmdk
• BT4R2-s004.vmdk
• BT4R2-s005.vmdk
• BT4R2-s006.vmdk
• BT4R2-s007.vmdk
• BT4R2-s008.vmdk
• BT4R2-s009.vmdk
• BT4R2-s010.vmdk
• BT4R2-s011.vmdk
• BT4R2.nvram
• BT4R2.vmdk
• BT4R2.vmdk.lck
• BT4R2.vmsd
• BT4R2.vmx
• BT4R2.vmxf
• tklpatch
• vmware.log
• vprintproxy.log

Thanks for the excellent article.

I tried this to convert .vmdk to .iso using qemu-img. My vmdk file is 1.7 GB and the resulting .raw is whoping 20 GB. Why is the raw file so big?

Maybe the .raw is 20GB because the .vmdk was created with 20GB virtual disk?

I created a VM with 20GB virtual disk using VMware fusion with no splitting option and installed linux core and base. I see that .vmdk is ~1.7GB and the following command produced linux.raw file which is 20GB.

qemu-img convert -f vmdk linux.vmdk -O raw linux.raw

What I'm trying to achieve is to install my application and the dependencies in the VM and create an ISO image and distribue it to my customers. It's possible to distribute the virtual appliance in .vmdk itself but if I can distribute an ISO customer can install it on any hardware or any virtualization technologies.

It was mentioned that changes were required to do this with version 11 based appliances. What needs to be done to make this process work with those? Now that I have a working iFolder appliance I'd like to make a cd of it so I don't have to compile the packages again.

Hello am at half way exactly on 

cat>turnkey-core.rootfs/etc/fstab<<EOF

but I get the followin

I found the this command:   VBoxManage filename.vdi newfile.iso --format RAW

The command VBoxManage filename.vdi newfile.iso --format RAW would not work for me.

I think that the command would be VBoxManage clonehd filename.vdi newfile.iso --format RAW

I have not been able to test the iso file that resulted yet.  The iso file is about 6 times the size of the vdi file.

Everything moves along swell up until the last command..

 tklpatch-prepare-cdroot Mikrotik/
# preparing cdroot
basename: missing operand
Try `basename --help' for more information.
cp: omitting directory `Mikrotik//boot/'

I'm trying to convert a virtual machine created with MikroTik Router OS from here

http://download.mikrotik.com/mikrotik-5.4.iso

Into a bootable ISO of the configured OS.

ISO --> Virtual Machine --> ISO of the VM

I've managed to properly mount all the partitions using some info gleaned from here: http://felinemenace.org/~andrewg/MikroTik_Router_Security_Analysis_Part1/

Basically have to mount the RAW image with and offset of 512 to id the filesystem (ext2) properly.

/sbin/fdisk -l -u mikrotik.raw

This will actually mount an image properly, so just modify it as the Gotcha above for partitions.

mount -o loop,offset=512 mikrotik.raw /mnt/mikro/

I'm just stuck now, I don't know how to properly add both partitions to the image nor will the script run on the rootfs gleaned from one of the partitions.

If anyone can help I would appreciate this.

I'm guessing that this conversion process could take a really long time. I'm waiting for the command "qemu-img convert -f vmdk Linux\ Mint.vmdk -O raw LinuxMint8Helena.raw" to finish executing. Should it really take so long?

Thanks for the post... Everything was fine until the chroot command. I get the below error

$ tklpatch-chroot mrs-meego-1.1.rootfs/
chroot: failed to run command `dpkg-divert': No such file or directory

Any idea what is wrong here?

Thanks

Can You Please Upload A Video For This

hi, im trying to mount a vmdk with installed Android-x86 distro.

my goal is to modify system dir.

tried this :

chmod 777 android23.vmdk

losetup -s -f android23.vmdk

kpartx -a dev/loop0 , cause there is a partition

mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1  mydisk

mount was correct, but not access in delete system or any other dir

cheers

mount -o loop turnkey-core.raw turnkey-core.mount

error:
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

Neither 'msdos', 'fat32' or 'ntfs' seem to be recognized. (yes, I'm doing this with a windows 7 image).

Any suggestions? Thanks!

Everything works up to this point:

tklpatch-prepare-cdroot turnkey-core.rootfs/

After this I get an error about syslinux not being found... Any suggestions? 

Just want to say that this blog contains what often we're looking for and can't find simply by ignorance of those who know and have NO desire to explain to these who learning. NOT In here !!

 SUPPERRRR and Thanks

VBoxManage clonehd -format RAW test.vdi test.raw

Hi Alon,

Not sure, if you received my last post. Could you assist in this matter ?

http://screencast.com/t/tcHfMIrF

Yours,

Marco

Ah, noticed I have LVM. Getting close since I could now mount lv_swap and lv_root using listings 7 and 8 at: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8874?page=0,2

Is there a way to make this cd installable? as in install cd so when you go to the desktop in the live enviornment, and click an icon to install? OK if it is terminal-based...

I've been searching for days trying to figure out how to do this. This is the only walk-through that worked on the first try. Mad Propz!!

We run a highly virtulized dynamic environment. Even our DNS servers are virtulized. When we have a catastrophic event and have to spin everything up from scratch our VM hosts cant find their back end storage because DNS is down becuase the VM Host cant find its back end storage ..... so I want a bootable ISO of our DNS server, even if I have to tweak some of the entries because they have changed Its still better than what I currently have to do which involves remounting storage devices as an IP bringing up DNS then bringing up a clone on another host and downing the first copy. Its quite time consuming and surprisingly we seem to have several catastrophic events a year.

Hi,

First thanks for the article,

I got the same problem as teabag, meaning when i get to the tklpatch-chroot i get :

chroot: failed to run command `dpkg-divert': No such file or directory

I think it means he can't find dpkg in the chroot environnment, but i got no idea how to fix this, if you have one i'd be glad to hear it.

Thanks a lot.

Basa.

PS : I'm trying to convert the metasploitable vmdk to an iso.

I use a program called remastersys if your looking at creating bootable OS from working linux system. Allows live OS and install, and options to output config from services/applications so theres no mucking around after install. If was providing read only control on services I couldnt see why it wouldnt run all day live of a cd/dvd. Draw backs is I have only tested this with ubuntu (but most things linux can be tinkered and chaged to suit) and it wont like the iso if it is too big (but again I cant see why the size limitation cant be "forced" to ignore error).

Thanks a lot for sharing your great and informative article.

Since I took part in a Workshop regarding to VMware, I work with it.

I made good experiences and hope to expand my knowledge in this case.

So thanks again and all the best!

Hi,

I followed the steps, and got all the way to the iso, but it doesn't boot properly. In the boot process it gets to the step where it starts a vmxnet NIC driver, then kernel panics.

I suspect I somehow need to uninstall it at the .rootfs stage, and replace it with something else. I am not sure how I can do this, any ideas?

Ronald

loop device ≠ 'loopback' device

Error , two partititions, /boot and /dev/mapper. 

Generate kernel panic 

hello

thanks a lot for this solution. Just to add a small bug in the procedure, i was getting error while creating the iso stating that the file size was larger than 2Gb so some flag "-allow-limited-size" had to be added.

finally i create the iso and tried to install with it, but the it didnt work :( from the logs i cud just find that some kernel panic had happened and the whole thing just shut down.

had anyone faced a similar issue. please help !!

Hello

Thank you for this tutorial.

Is the ISO image file created by this method installable or just bootable (live) ?

Regards

mount -o loop turnkey-core.raw turnkey-core.mount

mount: you must specify the filesystem type

What type of file system do I have to use to mount the RAW image?

i have the error: mount: you must specify the filesystem type

in this stage :

mount -o loop turnkey-core.raw turnkey-core.mount

thanks :)

Thanks for this article it is exactly what I need.  Everything is working fine until I get here...

#tklpatch-chroot silk.rootfs

I get this error...

chroot: failed to run command 'dpkg-divert' : No such file or directory

I've followed this process to the final step and have had success so far, however when I attempt to run tklpatch-geniso foo.cdroot I get: File foo.cdroot//casper/10root.squashfs is larger than 4GiB-1. -allow-limited-size was not specified. There is no way do represent this file size. Aborting. the cdroot directory is 22gig in size. I didn't see anything in this post that excludes large vms. Is there a work around to this?

In fairness... it would be nice, to leave thouse "once helpful" articles up to date, ore delete 'em ;)
We have too much confusion already, right ?
So how about this one ...
https://www.turnkeylinux.org/blog/convert-vm-iso ?
Since Remastersys does no DNS in the backup,
it would be really nice to have a working process
step by step
including /home/USER
Maybe you can help
Regards

everything goes well till i mount it, (sudo mount /dev/mapper/$(basename $loopdev)pl^Ceb_Server-disk.mount) i got the folllowing error,

mount: special device /dev/mapper/loop0pl does not exist

how can i splve this, please kindly help me with that.

Error in this step:

# tklpatch-prepare-cdroot imageUbuntu.rootfs
# preparing cdroot
cp: no se puede efectuar `stat' sobre 'imageUbuntu.rootfs/usr/lib/syslinux/isolinux.bin': No such file or directory

I have previously installed syslinux inside chroot

# tklpatch-chroot imageUbuntu.rootfs/
(Tklpatch) root @ ubuntu: / etc / tomcat7 # apt-get update
(Tklpatch) root @ ubuntu: / etc / tomcat7 # apt-get install syslinux
(Tklpatch) root @ ubuntu: / etc / tomcat7 # exit

No reason why not install the binary isolinux.bin

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.