3
1
I'm currently trying to move a fairly empty, fresh qcow2 image from one system to another that's far away. I've basically got a fresh install of ubuntu LTS (real size 6gb, apparent size 200gb). Most file transfer methods (rsync over ssh) and sftp with duck attempt to transfer over 200gb.
This is inefficient since the disk image isn't actually using 200gb (just that it might, eventually). What would I need to do to transfer only what's used by the VM?
Both ends of the transfer run fedora 22, and I'd ideally not want to switch disk image formats, tho that would an option. Speed would be nice - I don't want to trade off transfer time for processing time.
tar
the files in the filesystem, and simply transfer the archive. That's one way to install an embedded rootfs. – sawdust – 2015-06-12T02:33:01.7131Can you zip it? – Paul – 2015-06-12T02:33:14.873
I think I tried tar.gz ing it and it took a while. I didn't think of just tarring it. – Journeyman Geek – 2015-06-12T02:36:34.460
Try shrink the image with steps here before sending it.
– cheong00 – 2015-06-12T02:39:39.260hmm. http://libguestfs.org/virt-sparsify.1.html looks good. I'll give tarring, feathering and sparifying a try over the weekend.
– Journeyman Geek – 2015-06-12T02:44:08.663