Add way to change mounted cdrom images on the fly

Submitted by drtester on Sun, 02/19/2012 - 23:06

When installing OSes that require more than one CD or DVD disk (image), it would be nice to have something in the cloudmin GUI that would let you do this, without requiring a reboot. I have done this via command line, so the possibility is there.

On a related note, it might be nice to have a listing of available iso images to mount as a CD, similar to what you have for the pre-configured distros.

Status: 
Closed (fixed)

Comments

Submitted by JamieCameron on Mon, 02/20/2012 - 00:06

That may or may not be possible, depending on the virtualization type ... Are you using xen, or KVM ?

Submitted by JamieCameron on Mon, 02/20/2012 - 14:16

You may actually be able to do this in Cloudmin already - just go to Resources -> Manage DIsks, click on the CD image and click "Detach Now". Then click "Add existing file or device as a disk" , set the "Disk media" to "CD-ROM", enter the path to the .iso file, and click "Create".

Alternatively, download the software you want to install as a DVD image, so you never need to swap CDs :-)

Submitted by drtester on Wed, 02/22/2012 - 21:34

Hi Jamie,

The problem is that when you do what you described, it does not take effect until you turn the VM off, then back on. KVM does allow this to be done while the VM is running, so I'm just asking if this could be implemented here. There are installations other than OSes that also are multi-disk. I do have a specific linux distro that is not available as a DVD iso, that I was trying to install.

Submitted by JamieCameron on Wed, 02/22/2012 - 22:13

Are you running Cloudmin 6.1? I just released it, and it should support removing and adding CD-ROM images to running VMs.

Submitted by drtester on Wed, 02/29/2012 - 21:35

I've upgraded to version 6.1, and gave it a try. Now I can't seem to mount any file! Keep getting the message:

Failed to save disk : Missing or invalid real disk file or device

...when I try to load a ISO CD image to a running system, despite making absolute sure the filename I entered (full path name) really exists.

Submitted by JamieCameron on Wed, 02/29/2012 - 23:17

Are you sure the path exists on the host system, not the cloudmin master?

Submitted by drtester on Wed, 02/29/2012 - 23:22

Cloudmin is running on the host system. The path exists on the host system. I was using it the same way prior to doing the update.

Submitted by JamieCameron on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 13:08

Odd, I can't re-produce this error. Are you adding a new disk, or editing an existing one?

Submitted by drtester on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 21:41

I am adding an new disk as a CDROM, specifying the filename: /home/iso/Mandrake92-cd2-ext.i586.iso

Here is what is on the host filesystem: [root@vm3 iso]# pwd /home/iso [root@vm3 iso]# ls -al total 13675060 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 18 17:17 . drwxr-xr-x. 4 root root 4096 Feb 18 10:58 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3605403648 Sep 9 21:19 CentOS-5.7-i386-bin-DVD-1of2.iso -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3816622080 Dec 16 19:06 CentOS-6.2-i386-bin-DVD1.iso -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4423129088 Feb 18 13:43 centos6-64-backup.iso -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 683642880 Apr 8 2004 Mandrake92-cd1-inst.i586.iso -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 731797504 Apr 8 2004 Mandrake92-cd2-ext.i586.iso -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 728948736 Apr 8 2004 Mandrake92-cd3-i18n.i586.iso

This is on the same system you were recently checking out for the cron error message.

Submitted by drtester on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 21:42

Wow, the editor made a mess out of that. Let's try that file listing again:

[root@vm3 iso]# pwd
/home/iso
[root@vm3 iso]# ls -al
total 13675060
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root       4096 Feb 18 17:17 .
drwxr-xr-x. 4 root root       4096 Feb 18 10:58 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3605403648 Sep  9 21:19 CentOS-5.7-i386-bin-DVD-1of2.iso
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3816622080 Dec 16 19:06 CentOS-6.2-i386-bin-DVD1.iso
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4423129088 Feb 18 13:43 centos6-64-backup.iso
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  683642880 Apr  8  2004 Mandrake92-cd1-inst.i586.iso
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  731797504 Apr  8  2004 Mandrake92-cd2-ext.i586.iso
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  728948736 Apr  8  2004 Mandrake92-cd3-i18n.i586.iso

Submitted by JamieCameron on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 23:00

Which VM were you trying to attach the CD to? I was able to attach /home/iso/Mandrake92-cd2-ext.i586.iso to test.nlenet.net with no problems ..

Submitted by drtester on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 23:10

That VM was not powered on. I was trying to attach it to the lists.nlenet.net VM. Hmm, just tried it again, and now it works. I think this one was my error! There was another field I didn't see before.

So despite the message saying you need to reboot, it really -will- attach it right then-and-there without needing a guest reboot now?

Submitted by JamieCameron on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 23:22

I did some testing with this today, and found that under KVM there is no way to detach an IDE CD from a running instance, which is how Cloudmin performs CD changes currently. Detaching and re-attaching works for VirtIO hard disks, but not for CDs :-(

However, for the next release we will implement the method you linked to above for changing the ISO path for an existing virtual CD.

Submitted by JamieCameron on Sat, 03/10/2012 - 13:59

CD changing on the fly has been implemented, for inclusion in Cloudmin 6.2.

Submitted by Issues on Sat, 03/24/2012 - 19:17

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.