Blackbox Migration ProcessΒΆ

The goal of black box migration is to reproduce a near identical copy of the currently running workload. However, there will always be small differences between the two workloads after migration is complete, notably some services are disabled or enabled depending on the target machine image being created (refer to Changes to Service State Based on Target). When scanning a system the following information is detected:

  • all the files and packages on the system (including configuration information). If you have selected a scan without overlay, then extra files and specific configuration information will be detected but will not be included in the report.
  • network settings including all NICs. Note that if the first card is static, it will be changed to DHCP.
  • root and user password (encrypted)
  • timezone
  • keyboard settings
  • kernel parameters
  • users and groups
  • SSH keys
  • filesystem layout (partitioning)
  • SELinux settings (for Linux only). When SELinux is detected on the migrated system, the /.autorelabel file is added to the file system in order to relabel it on first boot.

When you generate a machine image from the scan, all the information included in the scan report is used in constructing the new machine image (except extra files if you performed a scan without overlay). However, prior to the generation starting, you will be prompted to indicate if you want to change some basic settings of the filesystem, namely the overall disk size and the swap size. You cannot set the swap size to 0. If you want to delete the swap partition, you must do this in Advanced Partitioning (refer to Configuring Advanced Partitioning).

Warning

If the IP address of the live system being scanned has a static IP address, then this IP address is preserved, except when migrating a K5 image. For K5 migration, the settings will be changed so that DHCP is used. In all other cases, when the machine is migrated, the new instance has the same IP address as the original machine. In the case where the machine being scanned uses DHCP, then DHCP will be used for the migrated instance also. In this case the target environment must provide a DHCP service for an IP address to be assigned. If you wish to migrate a workload that has a static IP address, and you wish to reset the IP address or use DHCP then you should use white box migration.

Warning

Currently, UForge is not able to migrate the Yum repository GPG keys. This means that the user will have to accept the repository GPG key when the user installs or updates a package. The user will have to do this only once per repository.

Note

If you plan to migrate a Windows instance onto K5 Fujitsu Public Cloud, you must also do the following before scanning:

  1. Uninstall VMWare Tools (if installed).
  2. Disable NLA for RDP (Please refer to official Microsoft documentation Configure Network Level Authentication for Remote Desktop Services Connections).
  3. Uninstall CloudBase-Init (if installed).

For more detailed information, please refer to official Fujitsu K5 IaaS Documentation.

When you carry out black box migration (by generating a machine image directly from a scan), the following steps are carried out:

  1. You are prompted to indicate if you want to change the overall disk size.

  2. Choose the machine image format to generate. Further options are provided depending upon the format chosen.

  3. UForge AppCenter generates the machine image:

    • Dependency checking is SKIPPED. This is done intentionally so that UForge does not alter the package list manifest detected during the scan process.
    • Create the disk ready for installation (using the disk size and partitioning by the user if they have requested a change)
    • Install the native os packages from the scan report
    • Apply the overlay file from the scan report, if you performed a scan with overlay
    • Apply the low configuration information detected in the scan report (passwords, timezone, keyboard, etc)
    • Apply any specific libraries or configuration depending on the machine image format chosen (e.g for AWS UForge adds the required AWS libraries)
  4. Register the new machine image to the target environment.

  5. You can provision one or more instances from the machine image. Each instance being a near identical workload from the original.