Vnx-modify-rootfs
Updating or modifying a VNX root filesystem
In order to update or modify a VNX root filesystem (rootfs from now on), you have two possible methods:
Mount the root filesystem from the host
The fastest way to modify a root filesystem is by mounting it from the host and directly modifying it without starting a virtual machine. To do that:
- Create a ndb device with the filesystem:
modprobe nbd qemu-nbd -c /dev/nbd0 <rootfs_name>
being <rootfs_name> the rootfs filename.
fdisk -l /dev/ndb0
mount /dev/nbd0p1 /mnt
umount /mnt qemu-nbd -d /dev/nbd0
-
Examples:
- Ubuntu rootfs
- FreeBSD rootfs:
Start a virtual machine in direct mode
To start a virtual machine directly mounting a rootfs and having Internet connection, you can use vnx command with the following parameters:
vnx --modify_rootfs <rootfs_name>
being <rootfs_name> the rootfs filename.
Alternatively, you can create a libvirt XML virtual machine definition (see examples in /usr/share/vnx/examples directory) and start it using virsh:
virsh create rootfs_XXX.xml
and manually opening the console using:
virt-viewer <vmname>
being <vmname> the name assigned by libvirt to the virtual machine (you can get it with "virsh list" command).
Once the virtual machine is started and you have access to the console, you can make the modifications desired.
At the end, halt the virtual machine using the vnx_halt command. This will clean some log and history files, clean the apt cache and optionally leave a text message in /etc/vnx_rootfs_version describing the modifications done.
Updating VNXACE daemon
If you have a rootfs with the autoconfiguration and command execution daemon (ACE) already installed, you can use the autoupdate functionality to update the daemon to a newer version. Just follow this procedure:
Linux and FreeBSD
- Start the virtual machine with the following command line options:
vnx --modify-rootfs <rootfs_name> --update-aced -y
being <rootfs_name> the rootfs filename. This command will try to update the VNXACE daemon to the latest version automatically (-y option).
- Mounting the update disk:
mount /dev/sdb /mnt # For Linux mount -t msdosfs /dev/ad1 /mnt # For FreeBSD
perl /mnt/vnxaced-lf/install_vnxaced
Windows
To be completed
Olive
To be completed