How can i restore linux backup on virtual machine

Question

I have made the backup of my linux OS in bacukp.tgz which is centos 6.4. Now i want to create a new virtual machine vmware from it.

So do i first need to install centos form cd or iso and then i overwrite all the files with backup or is there any way i can directly start with backup.tgz

@ALex_hha on Ec2 Live server with tar czpf backup.tgz / – user1865341 Jul 24 '13 at 06:23 — user1865341, Jul 24 '13 at 06:23

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 24 '13 at 08:29

boot a LiveCD, any Linux Distro is OK.
partition the disk
mount your partition (for example to /target)
mount your other partitions under /target if you plan to have separate /boot, /var, or any other partitions
copy your backup to /target

mount /dev, /sys, /proc with bind mount to the /target

mount -o bind /dev /target/dev
mount -o bind /sys /target/sys
mount -o bind /proc /target/proc

chroot into /target
```
 chroot /target
```
install grub
reboot into your restored system

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 24 '13 at 07:32

0

Of course first of all you need to install fresh centos-6.4 and then untar backup.tgz

answered Jul 24 '13 at 07:32

ALex_hha

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 24 '13 at 07:53

This started life as a comment but grew too long.

If you untar directly over the system you are running in, it will most likely crash when you overwrite libraries, so you'd need to experiment with excluding various system directories. It would also probably not boot afterwards owing to wrong device paths and missing drivers.

As ALex_hha says, your best plan might be to install a fresh copy of Centos, then selectively restore non-system directories. Or boot your VM off an external iso image, or mount it to another VM, then untar but you'd face the same device problems.

For the future, read up on AWS's VM export, Vmware's Converter, and so-called p2v generally.

How can i restore linux backup on virtual machine

3 Answers3