Capture and deploy guest

[Herald ten Dam]

We made a guest with next setup:
mdisk 100 /boot/zipl (so boot)
mdisk 200 / /root etc (so rest of Linux)

We made for both disk a dump with /opt/zthin/bin/creatediskimage as described in Chapter 5 of the manual. Both dumps are registered as rootonly (no option to set otherwise).

Now we made a new user id in z/VM, identical to the above user and did a deploy with both images, one for the 100 disk and 1 for the 200 disk. After doing so, the new guest doesn't come up and gives HCPVMI23E IPL UNIT ERROR.

Looking at the log file, it looks like that with deplying he sees the 100 not as root, but the 200 as root. So he tries a zipl on 200, but not on 100. This is strange, but also the name is strange to check for zipl as the root disk.

Guest is Suse12 SP3

[jichenjc (jichenjc)]

https://review.gerrithub.io/c/mfcloud/python-zvm-sdk/+/443058 is this related to this question?

can you help to provide some API/functions you used and some logs you can provide? I might collect more info so my colleagues come from vacation soon will have more input to take look

[Herald ten Dam (damsteen)]

I read the manual again, we did step "5.2.2. Installation and Configuration of IUCV service in zLinux", but did not do steps 5.2.3 and 5.2.4 because we thought it is just an image capture and deploy. Are 5.2.3 and 5.2.4 necessary for a good deployment? (we will not use cloud-init)

If so, we will make these installations and try again.

Thanks
Herald

[jichenjc (jichenjc)]

yes, zvmguestconfigure is needed and

1) I am curious which AE you want to use other than cloud-init, please note we didn't test other AE before.....
2) I am not sure whether it can fix your issue because looks like your issue comes from IPL stage..

anyway I think it's worth a try

[Herald ten Dam (damsteen)]

Ok, we will install zvmguestconfigure.

We had before cloud connector already ideas about cloning. This cloning was based on making dumps with ddr on z/VM site per disk and replace them back. In the guest we had a boot script with took care of changing ip's and hostname, based on a configuration stored on a disk we linked to the guest.
So we basically cloned in z/VM, but the customer wanted more control to their site (linux sitte) so that's why we looking at Cloud Connector.

I will ask the customer for the installation of zvmguestconfigure and we will make a new clone.

Thanks
Herald

[jichenjc (jichenjc)]

ok, I think if you provide more API usage including zvmsdk logs etc will be helpful for us to know the
solution we might find or workaround etc...

anyway, as mentioned, we will provide more feedback after colleagues go back from holiday

[Herald ten Dam (damsteen)]

We tried some deployment:
1: SUSE 12.SP3 on 1 disk, the 100 (EXT3). This works; capture and deploy works on new guest.
2: SUSE 12.SP3 on 1 disk but with BTFRS. This leads to 2 partitions in SUSE12 because of /boot/zipl is not allowed on BTFRS and it makes this partition EXT3. Capture of the disk is not working now because he will only capture the boot partition, the other part is nowhere included. So deployment of new guest is not possible now.
3: SUSE 12.SP3 on 2 disks. This was the bug described. This doesn't work also.

I will add logs from our deployments.

[Herald ten Dam (damsteen)]

Deployment of 200 disk without /boot/zipl