ccrusader

I am virtualizing some machines from Dell 2950s running RHEL5 to ESX 3 using my own script running on Kanotix (a Knoppix 64-bit variant).

I have a script that builds and copies the data, but I need to rebuild the kernel due to device changes.

chroot /mnt/sysimage/root/mkinitrd fails. It is an edited copy of mkinitrd. In attempting to debug this problem, I find that chroot /mnt/sysimage fails also.

I do the following:
vgscan --mknodes
vgchange -ay
lvscan
mkdir /mnt/sysimage
mount /dev/VG00/LVroot /mnt/sysimage
mkdir /mnt/sysimage
mount /dev/VG00/LVroot /mnt/sysimage
mount -o remount,dev,exec,data=ordered /dev/VG00/LVroot /mnt/sysimage
mount -o exec,data=ordered /dev/sda1 /mnt/sysimage/boot
mount -o exec,data=ordered /dev/VG00/LVtmp /mnt/sysimage/tmp
mount -o exec,data=ordered /dev/VG00/LVusr /mnt/sysimage/usr
mount -o exec,data=ordered /dev/VG00/LVvar /mnt/sysimage/var
mount -o exec,data=ordered /dev/VG00/LVopt /mnt/sysimage/opt
mount -o exec,data=ordered /dev/VG00/LVoradata /mnt/sysimage/oradata
mount --bind /proc /mnt/sysimage/proc
mount --bind /sys /mnt/sysimage/sys
mount --bind /dev /mnt/sysimage/dev
mount --bind /dev/pts /mnt/sysimage/dev/pts

and then
chroot /mnt/sysimage

this gives
chroot: cannot run command `/bin/bash': Exec format error

also
/mnt/sysimage/bin/bash gives the message
chroot: cannot run command `/bin/bash': Exec format error

uname -a on the real machine gives
Linux hart-a725.ccci.org 2.6.9-67.0.7.ELsmp #1 SMP Wed Feb 27 04:47:23 EST 2008 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

uname -a on the Kanotix guest gives
Linux Kanotix 2.6.24-3-kanotix #1 SMP Mon Dec 31 17:27:37 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

file /mnt/sysimage/bin/bash gives
/mnt/sysimage/bin/bash: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, AMD x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.4.0, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.4.0, stripped

and for reference,
file /bin/bash gives
/bin/bash: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.4.1, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.4.1, stripped

the pertinent section of mount shows
/dev/mapper/VG00-LVroot on /mnt/sysimage type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
/dev/sda1 on /mnt/sysimage/boot type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
/dev/mapper/VG00-LVtmp on /mnt/sysimage/tmp type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
/dev/mapper/VG00-LVusr on /mnt/sysimage/usr type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
/dev/mapper/VG00-LVvar on /mnt/sysimage/var type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
/dev/mapper/VG00-LVopt on /mnt/sysimage/opt type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
/dev/mapper/VG00-LVoradata on /mnt/sysimage/oradata type ext3 (rw,data=ordered)
/proc on /mnt/sysimage/proc type none (rw,bind)
/sys on /mnt/sysimage/sys type none (rw,bind)
/dev on /mnt/sysimage/dev type none (rw,bind)
/dev/pts on /mnt/sysimage/dev/pts type none (rw,bind)

ls -al /mnt/sysimage/bin/bash gives
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 772880 2007-07-20 06:39 /mnt/sysimage/bin/bash



I have tried all kinds of things to get this to work. I've used a couple of other Knoppix64- and Knoppix-type distros. I've done all kinds of Google searches. Somehow I'm guessing these just won't run the bash off of the target sysem due to architecture differences.

Any suggestions?