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Mister IT Guru
Asked: 2012-01-12 04:33:40 +0800 CST

How can import an existing linux machine into Rackspace?

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How can import an existing linux machine into Rackspace is pretty much what I'd like to know. I've got a VM hosted in a datacenter, and I'd like to move that VM, which is configured and running perfectly to Rack Space Cloud Server

I don't really like the idea of having to use only rackspace images, but if I really have no choice then any ideas on how to upload my own image to rackspace? Or indeed any cloud provider.

Thanks,

virtualization migration openstack rackspace rackspace-cloud

3 Answers

  1. If you wish to break cloud vendor lock-in, you should consider Cloudify. We run nightly Cloudify test suites on Rackspace, Amazon EC2 and HPCloud or even on bare metal using standard images provided by each of the cloud providers. Each application installs and manages itself on a clean image using predefined recipes. You can use these recipes also for configuring the OS.

    You can read this nice blog about Cloud Portability:

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  2. Rackspace has no way to move servers between accounts -- if you ask support about this, they will point you to their article about migrating w/ rsync -- much less a way to import your own images.

    And a word of caution: CloudServers is great if you're looking for something between shared hosting and dedicated i.e. a machine that won't change much. For a setup where you want to resize and clone to adjust to changing load, it's completely broken -- sizing up often fails without warning or explanation. The workaround is to create an image (which also sometimes fails) and then build new server(s) from this image. This results in new IP address(es), which can be a real headache due to DNS, blacklisting, firewalls, etc.

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  3. I know this is an old thread, but the answer has changed - there is now a way of doing this. You can use the method outlined in http://boot.rackspace.com/ to boot from an iPXE boot source - check out this URL for additional information.

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