Using An Existing Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop Virtual Machine - Novell SUSE LINUX ENTERPRISE DESKTOP 11 SP1 - 8-18-2010 VIRTUALIZATION WITH ZEN Manual

3.6 Using an Existing SUSE Linux
Enterprise Desktop Virtual
Machine
In SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP1 and later, the device naming is different
than the device naming of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. Therefore, a SUSE
Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 VM Guest will not be able to find its root file system
when running on a SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP1 VM Host Server.
To be able to still boot the system, you must know which device is used for the root
partition of your virtual system. For example, hdaxx will be changed to xvdaxx
where xx is the partition number.
When booting the system, append an extra root option to the kernel command line, that
tells the system about its root file system. If your VM Guest used to live on /dev/
hda2, append the string root=/dev/xvda2 to the kernel command line. This option
should enable you to boot the system, although additional file systems still will not be
available to the system.
To make all the needed file systems available to the VM Guest, do the following:
In order to have a valid initial RAM disk that knows about the new location of the root
file system, run the command mkinitrd.
1 Start the VM Guest with the extra root= command line as explained above.
2 Log into the system as user root.
3 Edit the file /etc/fstab and correct all device entries.
4 Edit the virtual machine's /boot/grub/menu.lst file. At the kernel line,
fix the root= and the resume= parameters according the new naming schema.
5 Reboot the virtual machine.
Setting Up Virtual Machines 27