[Users] Recovering VMs when the engine is lost

[Itamar Heim]

On 11/23/2012 04:16 PM, Joern Ott wrote:
> Hello Itamar,
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Itamar Heim [mailto:iheim at redhat.com]
>> Sent: Freitag, 23. November 2012 14:11
>> To: Joern Ott
>> Cc: users at ovirt.org; Ayal Baron
>> Subject: Re: [Users] Recovering VMs when the engine is lost
>>
>> On 11/23/2012 02:58 PM, Joern Ott wrote:
>>> Hey Itamar,
>>>
>>> this is an NFS storage.
>>
>> we don't currently support importing an existing data storage domain. so you
>> need to create a new nfs data domain.
>>
>> i suggest two 'hacky' options after that 1. less hacky - convert the current nfs
>> data domain to an export domain, and import the VMs from it.
>
> Is there any info on how to do this, I didn't find much info on export domains on the wiki. The last time I tried to move thin disks with ovirt GUI from one storage to another, they were expanded and filled up the destination. In the database, the disks were shown to be on the destination host and were marked as "invalid", so this procedure also has some risks.

check this one, and please wikify for others if you find it helpful:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.ovirt.user/4428

>
>> 2. more hacky - recreate the VMs on the new nfs data domain with exact
>> same details, and copy the disk over the newly created disks.
>>
>> benefit of the other is you may be able to move the data, instead of full
>> blown copy, while in option 1 (which is much simpler/less error prone), you
>> need to import all vm's again.
>
> The advantage of this would be faster speed as most disks are thin provisioned disks. So I think, I will go for this option.

just to make it clear - this is risky, and you should know what you are 
doing when copying/moving files over the new layout, which must be 
identical to previous definitions.

>>
>> there is current work to detect disks from a storage domain:
>> http://wiki.ovirt.org/wiki/Features/Domain_Scan
>>
>> when it will be ready (and better when import existing storage domain will
>> be supported), this would be easier.
>>
>>>
>>> KR
>>> Jörn
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Itamar Heim [mailto:iheim at redhat.com]
>>>> Sent: Freitag, 23. November 2012 10:32
>>>> To: Joern Ott
>>>> Cc: users at ovirt.org; Ayal Baron
>>>> Subject: Re: [Users] Recovering VMs when the engine is lost
>>>>
>>>> On 11/23/2012 11:03 AM, Joern Ott wrote:
>>>>> Hello everybody,
>>>>>
>>>>> I managed to re-install the server the oVirt engine was running on
>>>>> in my testlab. All the cpu and storages are still there and the VMs
>>>>> are still running without problems. Is there a way, I can attach the
>>>>> still existing nodes to the new oVirt engine and recover/import the
>> VMs?
>>>>>
>>>>> Alternatively, is there a way, I can import the VMs disks? I still
>>>>> know how the data center and clusters were set up and the specs for
>>>>> the VMs are also documented, so I'd like to re-attach the disks,
>>>>> which would save me some time compared to the re-installs.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> is this an iscsi or nfs data storage domain?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
> Kind regards
> Jörn
>