Install Windows Server 2008 on KVM/VirtIO

March 14, 2011 · in , , ,

An example how to install a Windows Server 2008 guest on KVM with VirtIO (on a LVM volume in the example). Besides the installation medium you need the VirtIO drivers for windows in order to be able to access the disk device. You can get signed binary drivers here. Then set up a Windows VM with a command like this:

$ virt-install --connect qemu:///system --arch=x86_64 -n win2k8 -r 1024 --vcpus=2 \
--disk pool=vmstore,size=50,bus=virtio,cache=none -c /path/to/win2k8.iso --vnc \
--noautoconsole --os-type windows --os-variant win2k8 --network network=subnet,model=e1000 \
--disk path=/path/to/virtio-win-1.1.16.iso,device=cdrom,perms=ro

When the guest is running, shut it down and edit the os section of the XML file to look like this (otherwise Windows setup won’t let you install on the disk):

$ virsh destroy win2k8
$ virsh edit win2k8

Change the XML as follows:

<os>
  ...
  <boot dev='cdrom'/>
  <boot dev='hd'/>
</os>

Start the guest again:

$ virsh start win2k8

Connect to the VNC console and start the installation process. When you reach the form to select a disk device you won’t see any devices available. Click on “Load drivers” at the bottom left and load the drivers from E:\viostor\wlh\{amd64|x86}. After the drivers are installed, you’ll see a disk device and can continue with the installation.

Sources

Fetchmail/Sieve on ISPMail setup – update

March 2, 2011 · in , ,

Quite some time ago I wrote a tutorial on how to integrate fetchmail and sieve into virtual mail with Postfix and Dovecot. As time passes and things change, here’s an update:

  1. I don’t use the sieve part anymore. Instead, I use the ManageSieve server provided by Dovecot. It integrates with Dovecot’s authentication system and you can use all kinds of clients supporting the managesieve protocol, e.g. Thunderbird or Roundcube.
  2. The ISPMail database structure changed since I wrote that tutorial which still relied on the DB structure for the Debian Etch structure. I updated the script to reflect both environments (take a look at the config file). However, it does not rely on any DB views anymore.
  3. The script (only the Fetchmail part) is now hosted on GitHub as I rarely use SVN anymore and the SVN may go offline in the near future. If anybody is interested in the Sieve part, just drop me a line.

Restore MySQL databases from raw *.frm files

March 1, 2011 · in , ,

I recently needed to restore data from a MySQL server where the host machine crashed and where I unfortunately didn’t have a proper dump backup – all I had was a backup of the MySQL data directory (/var/lib/mysql in case of Debian). After some googling I didn’t find a simple solution how to restore databases out of this backup. The solution which worked in the end was the following: I installed a fresh MySQL server in a virtual machine and replaced its data directory with the one from my backup (I had exactly the same MySQL versions on both machines). This allowed me to access the databases and create proper dumps which I could import in my real server later.

So, step one: in a virtual machine/spare server/local pc/whatever install a MySQL server and replace its data directory:

$ aptitude install mysql-server
$ /etc/init.d/mysql stop
$ mv /var/lib/mysql /var/lib/mysql.orig
$ cp -pr /tmp/backup/mysql /var/lib
$ chown -R mysql.mysql /var/lib/mysql

I also checked that file permissions match the normal permissions on Debian MySQL installations. Should be like this:

root@host:/var/lib/mysql# ls -al
drwx------  5 mysql mysql     4096 Mar  1 18:20 .
drwxr-xr-x 33 root  root      4096 Mar  1 18:20 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root  root         0 Mar  1 18:07 debian-5.1.flag
-rw-rw----  1 mysql mysql 27262976 Mar  1 18:21 ibdata1
-rw-rw----  1 mysql mysql  5242880 Mar  1 18:21 ib_logfile0
-rw-rw----  1 mysql mysql  5242880 Mar  1 18:21 ib_logfile1
drwx------  2 mysql mysql     4096 Mar  1 18:20 database1
drwx------  2 mysql mysql     4096 Mar  1 18:21 database2
drwx------  2 mysql root      4096 Mar  1 18:08 mysql
-rw-------  1 root  root         6 Mar  1 18:08 mysql_upgrade_info

root@host:/var/lib/mysql# ls -al database1
drwx------ 2 mysql mysql 4096 Mar  1 18:20 .
drwx------ 5 mysql mysql 4096 Mar  1 18:20 ..
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql   65 Mar  1 18:20 db.opt
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 8668 Mar  1 18:20 table1.frm
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql  879 Mar  1 18:20 table2.frm
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 1520 Mar  1 18:20 table3.frm

Now you can try to start the server and look if your databases are readable:

$ /etc/init.d/mysql start
$ mysql -uroot -p -e "show databases;"
Enter password:
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| database1          |
| database1          |
| mysql              |
+--------------------+

If this works, simply dump your needed databases with mysqldump, transfer them to your server and import them normally.

$ mysqldump -uroot -p database1 > /tmp/database1.sql
$ scp /tmp/database1.sql user@server:/tmp

On the server:

$ mysql -uroot -p -e "create database database1;"
$ mysql -uroot -p database1 < /tmp/database1.sql

And don’t forget to restore the temporary MySQL server to normal operation in case you need it later.

$ /etc/init.d/mysql stop
$ rm -rf /var/lib/mysql
$ mv /var/lib/mysql.orig /var/lib/mysql
$ /etc/init.d/mysql start