Alert /dev/sda1 does not exist?

[stevelabar]

I have a .vmdk flat file that is a virtual machine we use on VMWare obviously. I'm trying to migrate this to my proxmox installation by simply going to the /images/id of instance/ and replacing vm-115-disk1.vmdk with my proxmox file.

This technique has worked very well for me with other .vmdk files. However, this particular file boots and gets to Begin: waiting for root file system.. and after some waiting I see the following error:

Check root= bootarg cat /proc/cmdline por missing modules devices cat /proc/modules ls /dev

ALERT! /dev/sda1 does not exist.


I suspect it is because the virtual machine is trying to find its boot info at /dev/sda1 but proxmox has it somewhere else?

I searched around and tried going into GRUB to attempt to change where the vm boots from but have been unable to get that to work.

Is that going down the right direction?

Any help would be very much appreciated. I';ll be honest i'm not an expert in the linux/debian environment.

 

[udo]

Hi,
looks like an old guest (I guess your disk has another name like vda os so).
Can you post the vm-config? And the filetype?

cat /etc/pve/qemu-server/115.conf
file /var/lib/vz/images/115/vm-115-disk-1.vmdk

You can also change the /etc/fstab entry inside the VM to boot correctly - therefor you need to boot an live cd like grml inside your VM. See which device you use (fdisk -l), or better use UUIDs (blkid) and use the UUID from the first partition in fstab.

Udo

 

[stevelabar]

Hi,
looks like an old guest (I guess your disk has another name like vda os so).
Can you post the vm-config? And the filetype?

cat /etc/pve/qemu-server/115.conf
file /var/lib/vz/images/115/vm-115-disk-1.vmdk

You can also change the /etc/fstab entry inside the VM to boot correctly - therefor you need to boot an live cd like grml inside your VM. See which device you use (fdisk -l), or better use UUIDs (blkid) and use the UUID from the first partition in fstab.

Udo

First off, thank you for replying!

root@proxmox:~# cat /etc/pve/qemu-server/115.conf
bootdisk: ide0
cores: 1
ide0: local:115/vm-115-disk-2.vmdk
memory: 1024
name: WhiteHatSat
net0: rtl8139=1E:25:00:0C:4C:99,bridge=vmbr0
ostype: l26
sockets: 1



root@proxmox:/var/lib/vz/images/115# file vm-115-disk-2.vmdk
vm-115-disk-2.vmdk: x86 boot sector; GRand Unified Bootloader, stage1 version 0x3, stage2 address 0x2000, stage2 segment 0x200; partition 1: ID=0x83, active, starthead 1, startsector 63, 995841 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x82, starthead 0, startsector 995904, 5040 sectors, code offset 0x48

Here is the results you were looking for. Does this help? I'll try to do that live cd next but i'm not 100% clear what I tell it to boot to. What or where in proxmox should I have it point? I'll play around with the info you gave me if I run into more problems I may ask!

Thank you!

 

[stevelabar]

Here is the info that you asked about:



root@proxmox:~# cat /etc/pve/qemu-server/115.conf
bootdisk: ide0
cores: 1
ide0: local:115/vm-115-disk-2.vmdk
memory: 1024
name: WhiteHatSat
net0: rtl8139=1E:25:00:0C:4C:99,bridge=vmbr0
ostype: l26
sockets: 1

root@proxmox:/var/lib/vz/images/115# file vm-115-disk-2.vmdk
vm-115-disk-2.vmdk: x86 boot sector; GRand Unified Bootloader, stage1 version 0x3, stage2 address 0x2000, stage2 segment 0x200; partition 1: ID=0x83, active, starthead 1, startsector 63, 995841 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x82, starthead 0, startsector 995904, 5040 sectors, code offset 0x48


Any help is appreciated!

 

[udo]

First off, thank you for replying!



Here is the results you were looking for. Does this help? I'll try to do that live cd next but i'm not 100% clear what I tell it to boot to. What or where in proxmox should I have it point? I'll play around with the info you gave me if I run into more problems I may ask!

Thank you!

Hi,
I assume that your old guest see the ide0-hdd as hda instaed of sda (like modern linux-version do).

To fix:
1. Download the grml-iso (for this you can use all versions) and install them (upload) to the pve-host.
2. select this iso image as cd-rom for your VM.
3. use the cd as boot-device (option-menu)
4. start grml and do an "fdisk -l"
5. if you see sda do an "mount /dev/sda1 /mnt"
6. do an blkid /dev/sda1
6. change fstab: "vi /etc/fstab" and use for the root-fs the UUID instead of /dev/sda1 like

UUID=15d17dbe-4a2e-427c-9102-c10dd43fc5ab   /           ext3    defaults        0       1

** if your guest are very old UUID don't work! then try /dev/hda1
7. take a look at grub-config ("vi /mnt/boot/grub/menu.lst" or grub.cfg...) perhaps you must change the linux line also (root=UUID=15d17dbe-4a2e-427c-9102-c10dd43fc5ab). Here it's the same - an too old grub don't work with UUID.

8. umount /mnt
9. shutdown - change boot-order, and see what happens.

Udo

 

[stevelabar]

Hi,
I assume that your old guest see the ide0-hdd as hda instaed of sda (like modern linux-version do).

To fix:
1. Download the grml-iso (for this you can use all versions) and install them (upload) to the pve-host.
2. select this iso image as cd-rom for your VM.
3. use the cd as boot-device (option-menu)
4. start grml and do an "fdisk -l"
5. if you see sda do an "mount /dev/sda1 /mnt"
6. do an blkid /dev/sda1
6. change fstab: "vi /etc/fstab" and use for the root-fs the UUID instead of /dev/sda1 like

UUID=15d17dbe-4a2e-427c-9102-c10dd43fc5ab   /           ext3    defaults        0       1

** if your guest are very old UUID don't work! then try /dev/hda1
7. take a look at grub-config ("vi /mnt/boot/grub/menu.lst" or grub.cfg...) perhaps you must change the linux line also (root=UUID=15d17dbe-4a2e-427c-9102-c10dd43fc5ab). Here it's the same - an too old grub don't work with UUID.

8. umount /mnt
9. shutdown - change boot-order, and see what happens.

Udo

So,I'm at the part where you want me to edit the fstab file. I'm inside the file and don't see root-fs? At the very bottom of the file I see the following:



#added by grml /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ext3 noauto,user,dev...

Is that the line I should change? Would you mind clarifying what you mean by the following statement "I assume that your old guest see the ide0-hdd as hda instaed of sda (like modern linux-version do)." Do you mean that the guest which is the vm im currently booted into is probably old so does not look for sda1 but hda . If this is the case then inside the fstab the only hda i see is a commented lie it looks like /dev/sda1 is in there. I'm really not very smart with this stuff. Any more explanation on what we are doing here will be awesome!

But i'm really interested in learning!

 

[udo]

So,I'm at the part where you want me to edit the fstab file. I'm inside the file and don't see root-fs? At the very bottom of the file I see the following:



#added by grml /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ext3 noauto,user,dev...

Is that the line I should change? Would you mind clarifying what you mean by the following statement "I assume that your old guest see the ide0-hdd as hda instaed of sda (like modern linux-version do)." Do you mean that the guest which is the vm im currently booted into is probably old so does not look for sda1 but hda . If this is the case then inside the fstab the only hda i see is a commented lie it looks like /dev/sda1 is in there. I'm really not very smart with this stuff. Any more explanation on what we are doing here will be awesome!

But i'm really interested in learning!

Hi, I mean the fstab of the VM - /dev/sda1 is mountet to /mnt, so you must edit /mnt/etc/fstab.
First I would try the UUID way.

Because hda/sda - a time ago the linux kernel named ide-hdds as hd[X] and scsi-hdds sd[X]. Since some years (don't know which kernel version) ago, the ide-hdds also named as sd[X].

Udo

 

[stevelabar]

Hi, I mean the fstab of the VM - /dev/sda1 is mountet to /mnt, so you must edit /mnt/etc/fstab.
First I would try the UUID way.

Because hda/sda - a time ago the linux kernel named ide-hdds as hd[X] and scsi-hdds sd[X]. Since some years (don't know which kernel version) ago, the ide-hdds also named as sd[X].

Udo

I had no idea what I was doing but your directions got me going.

Cannot thank you enough!

As soon as the fstab and boot were changed to a UUID she fired right up!

 

[udo]

I had no idea what I was doing but your directions got me going.

Cannot thank you enough!

As soon as the fstab and boot were changed to a UUID she fired right up!

Hi,
fine that it's work - but if I'm right, that the VM is an very old system, you should think about an update (as security reasons).

Udo