Converting a Linux Machine fails during /var clone

Posted on 2 mins read

I was having some difficulty with the conversion of a Linux machine. Every time I tried to import the machine it would fail at about 19%.

So two things I wanted share with you today.

  1. If you are using the integrated vCenter Converter (which you should..) then you can monitor the results of the conversion from the vSphere client itself.
    If you right click on the task you will get a view summary option. Here you can monitor the conversion and get the history of prior attempts as well.

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  2. This is what I was getting during the conversion

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    So Mr. Google was my friend as usual (or at least I thought so) which brought me to KB1026348:
    Redhat 4 conversion fails or the virtual machine does not boot after successful conversion

    I tried step 4. which worked fine. there were no errors in the /var/log/messages file either.

    I admit this had me stumped for a while. I have done several of these conversions (today as well) without any issue before so Enable Retention of Sparse Files During Linux Conversions (1008303) was not appealing - it required a restart of the service and RedHat’s tar bug fix update did sound right either.

    So after searching a bit more I came across this thread. Now my solution was not exactly the one that was presented there but in my case it was an abnormal amount of files in  the var partition.

    I had found 148371 files that were located in /var/spool/clientmqueue/. It seemed that sendmail had barfed all over itself and had gone whacko.

    After removing all those files - I was able to import without an issue.

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