Restore VM backup fails

[jac2703]

Hi all,


I have two installs of proxmox 2 - one on an intel i7, the other on an older quad core intel 64 bit something or other. Both machines support virtualisation. Both Proxmox installs are pretty much brand new, and default.


I created a Windows Server 2008 VM on the i7 and ran a backup. I then ssh'd the backup to the quad core machine, created a VM with the same specification and used the web gui to restore the backup tar.


The backup completes successfully. I hit 'Start' to power on the VM however this is where my trouble start. In the console, all I get is a blank screen with a white cursor in the top left. CPU use reports as more or less zero, while ram consumption is 25MB (reported by the summary page on the web guy).


Does anyone have any ideas on what is causing this, or how to fix it?


Details:
root@server-raid:/# cat 101.conf
bootdisk: ide0
cores: 1
ide0: local:101/vm-101-disk-1.raw
ide2: none,media=cdrom
memory: 2048
name: server-domain
net0: rtl8139=6A:56:E0:34:7A:30,bridge=vmbr0
onboot: 1
ostype: other
sockets: 1


root@server-raid:/# pveversion -v
pve-manager: 2.0-54 (pve-manager/2.0/4b59ea39)
running kernel: 2.6.32-10-pve
proxmox-ve-2.6.32: 2.0-63
pve-kernel-2.6.32-10-pve: 2.6.32-63
lvm2: 2.02.88-2pve2
clvm: 2.02.88-2pve2
corosync-pve: 1.4.1-1
openais-pve: 1.1.4-2
libqb: 0.10.1-2
redhat-cluster-pve: 3.1.8-3
resource-agents-pve: 3.9.2-3
fence-agents-pve: 3.1.7-2
pve-cluster: 1.0-26
qemu-server: 2.0-33
pve-firmware: 1.0-15
libpve-common-perl: 1.0-23
libpve-access-control: 1.0-17
libpve-storage-perl: 2.0-16
vncterm: 1.0-2
vzctl: 3.0.30-2pve2
vzprocps: 2.0.11-2
vzquota: 3.0.12-3
pve-qemu-kvm: 1.0-8
ksm-control-daemon: 1.1-1

Thanks for looking!

James.

 

[tom]

Try to boot in windows safe-Mode.

 

[jac2703]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your answer.

Is there a smarter way to do that other than pressing F8? Basically, I don't believe the startup is getting that far, therefore F8 has no effect in the console. I would also assume windows would give an error (or at least something!) if it was getting that far.

Regards

James.

 

[adamjseed]

I am also getting problems as described here. I have upgrade from 1.9 to 2.0, Via backup of KVM's and do a fresh install. Upon restoring the VM and trying to start it I just get a black screen on the console.

I can press f12 to get into the boot menu and boot from my windows disk but it looks like the raw disk is knackered. Any suggestions?

 

[tom]

...


I created a Windows Server 2008 VM on the i7 and ran a backup. I then ssh'd the backup to the quad core machine, created a VM with the same specification and used the web gui to restore the backup tar.


..

I don´t really get what you did. If you make a backup you just can restore it with qmrestore.

(there is no need to create the VM first).

also check if you can install new Windows VM from ISO on this server.

 

[tom]

any errors or logs in the backup and/or restore? try to restore the backup on a 1.9 host. if this works, post the VM details (VMID.conf file).

 

[adamjseed]

So I tried a few things.
Firstly I tried to use qmrestore on a 2.0 server but hit an error described here:https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/show_bug.cgi?id=134 (unable to parse volume ID 'vzdump-qemu-111.tar'), which means I need to do it via the gui and run into the issue above.
I then tried to restore a backup on a 1.9 server but I can not see where to do this via the gui.

Btw thanks for the help Tom, really looking forward to using 2.0.

 

[tom]

So I tried a few things.
Firstly I tried to use qmrestore on a 2.0 server but hit an error described here:https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/show_bug.cgi?id=134 (unable to parse volume ID 'vzdump-qemu-111.tar'), which means I need to do it via the gui and run into the issue above.

the bug is fixed already (and package is in the pvetest repo).

I then tried to restore a backup on a 1.9 server but I can not see where to do this via the gui.

Btw thanks for the help Tom, really looking forward to using 2.0.

there is no gui on 1.9, restore via command line.

 

[adamjseed]

the bug is fixed already (and package is in the pvetest repo).

on 2.0 I added the test repo an the qmrestore worked. But the error still remains, the vm just hangs on boot (black screen with white cursor top left)

there is no gui on 1.9, restore via command line.

I also managed to use the command to retore the same vm on my 1.9 machine (the one it is currently running on) and this worked fine.

So my issue is: why isn't the backup/restore not working from machine A running 1.9 to machine B running 2.0?

 

[tom]

on 2.0 I added the test repo an the qmrestore worked. But the error still remains, the vm just hangs on boot (black screen with white cursor top left)


I also managed to use the command to retore the same vm on my 1.9 machine (the one it is currently running on) and this worked fine.

So my issue is: why isn't the backup/restore not working from machine A running 1.9 to machine B running 2.0?

works here so there must be something special with guest/backup or your 2.0 box.

 

[jac2703]

Hi Tom,

Sorry for the delayed reply. I have been offline for the week.

It looks like I have the same issue as adamjseed.

I have a few more observations which may (or not!) be relevant:

-The two machines are identical software-wise however the hardware is completely different - however they are both multi-core and both have Intel vx-d (something like that) enabled.
-The setup of the actual VM is the same on both.
-If I turn off 'KVM hardware virtualisation' in the 'options' tab Windows boots however I get a windows STOP error - to me this validates the disk image, boot priority and boot sectors and points more to physical/ virtual hardware differences.

If you have any pointers, it would be appreciated.

Cheers,

James.

 

[jac2703]

In addition... I have saved the disk image from source using:

[I]qemu-img convert -O vmdk vm-101-disk-1.raw /mnt/store/vm-101-disk-1.vmdk[/I]

And then started it in VMplayer on a different machine and it booted up fine. Coincidentally this other machine is also an i7, like the one the source image runs on.

I have tried the same vmdk in the kvm instance, replacing the restored disk, and it still does not work.

The virtual disk and install is fine - it has to be something wrong with the kvm environment on the core2 quad core machine.

Does anyone have any other ideas for things to try?

 

[Red948]

I've seen this before with different CPU architectures and nics. I had to remove the network devices then restart in safe mode. I recall that I got further too after changing the number of CPUs to 1 or just a diff number would jog something loose in windows. In safe mode I found dozens of duplicated virtual hardware devices and removed them all, uninstalled the drivers and restarted. I had best luck with intel e1000 virtual nic, but there were different windows driver versions out in the wild from KVM and I recall installing the wrong set would freeze it.