This post describes how to create a bit for bit copy of a Ubuntu 14.04 LTS server using tools like gddrescue and qemu from a Ubuntu Live-CD. This procedure can actually be used to create a copy of any operating system, not just Ubuntu.
This could probably have been done more easily and faster using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Client but I have experienced that not all linux flavours can be converted easily.
To perform such an operation you need several things.
- Extra harddrive – same size or bigger than used disk space
- Access to the linux packages gddrescue, qemu-imgThe first thing you should do to reduce the time ddrescue uses to copy the data is to remove unneeded files and folders as well as removing harddrives that you do not want to copy.
Creating the disk image
# ddrescue --nosplit /dev/sda imagefile.img imagefile.log
The –nosplit option copies the disk without retrying or splitting the file and is also “fast”.
Remember to place the imagefile.img on another harddisk than you are imageing to avoid filling your disk.
Convert the img file to a VWware VMDK disk file
# qemu-img -p convert -f raw sda.img -O vmdk sda.vmdk
Options used
-p gives you a nice progress indication of the conversion
-f raw tells us that we a trying to convert a raw disk image
-O vmdk describes the output format of the new disk image, in this example a VMware VMDK-file
qemu-img (1.5.0) supports a wide range of formats like vvfat vpc vmdk vhdx vdi sheepdog sheepdog sheepdog rbd raw host_cdrom host_floppy host_device file qed qcow2 qcow parallels nbd nbd nbd dmg tftp ftps ftp https http cow cloop bochs blkverify blkdebug.
