Booting VM's directly

[Lazydog]

Hello,

I have several VM's install on my system that I would like to configure in my grub so that I might be able to boot to them directly on system startup.

My VM's use actual disk space and not VM files so I believe this would be possible but I am unsure as to how to go about setting up grub to boot them.

Here is the trick I am running raid 1 here and here is what it looks like

cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1]
md0 : active raid1 sdb1[1] sda1[0]
      513984 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md10 : active raid1 sdb6[1] sda6[0]
      204796480 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md8 : active raid1 sdd1[1] sdc1[0]
      204796480 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md9 : active raid1 sdd2[1] sdc2[0]
      204796544 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md5 : active raid1 sdd6[1] sdc6[0]
      157573440 blocks [2/2] [UU]

They are configure as follows:

md5    sdc6    sdd6    VM    Kubuntu
md8    sdc1    sdd1    VM    Peppermint
md9    sdc2    sdd2    VM    Ultimate
md10    sda6    sdb6    VM    Centoos 6

Grub looks like this:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/md1
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/md0
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-274.3.1.el5)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5 ro root=/dev/md1 vga=795 rhgb quiet
        initrd /initrd-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-274.el5)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-274.el5 ro root=/dev/md1 vga=795 rhgb quiet
        initrd /initrd-2.6.18-274.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-238.19.1.el5)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-238.19.1.el5 ro root=/dev/md1 vga=795 rhgb quiet
        initrd /initrd-2.6.18-238.19.1.el5.img

I would like to add each of these to grub so that I can boot into anyone of them. How would I go about this?

Thanks for you time.

[Jonathan183]

I doubt you will be able to do this, I'm not sure which VM manager you are using but for VirtualBox I think the host OS has to run to provide the environment for the VM guest see here.
At one point I was trying to work out how to run a VM without an X session, but because I was accessing the VM on the same host I didn't get very far with it. I think you need a hypervisor which will run on the host ...

... I suspect you know much more on the subject than I do ... I'll watch this thread with interest ...

[Lazydog]

I am sure I should be able to do this. The host OS is CentOS and using KVM. Each VM has it's own install on a RAID disk and is install as such. I should be able to boot them like you would a windows or any other OS that you have installed on a separate partition. I just haven't figured out grub side of things to get this setup.

[hatebreed]

what format are the partitions in? You would have to make sure that grub would recognize them as a normal partition and not something exotic.

[Lazydog]

They are normal partitions on the drives, not files. This is one of the reason why I choose drive over files. The other was if something goes wrong I can mount the partition and fix it. I believe grub should be able to recognize them as they are ext3 format. Does grub recognize ext4 partitions? I think it does. I tried a few things and they didn't work so I placed this onto the back burner as I am presently focused on GNS3.