[nmglug] QEMU/KVM; Thunar as root?

Ted Pomeroy ted.pome at gmail.com
Thu Aug 8 15:34:05 PDT 2019 

Tom, oops. Typos made that Greek for sure. My suggestion is that
'interactive' or similar arguments on commandline can give feedback and
progress indicators.  Copy 'cp' and 'rsync' have many options. But I have
been known to use the gui via the other method above. Ted P.

On Thu, Aug 8, 2019, 3:55 PM Tom Ashcraft <trailerdog234 at comcast.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 2019-08-08 at 15:11 -0600, Ted Pomeroy wrote:
> > Tom, have you tried invoking thunar from a root terminal.
> No.  Until now I hadn't thought of anything so sensible and obvious.
> So far (other than the scary warnings about possibly damaging my
> system) it looks like that might be just what the doctor ordered.
>
> > Also you might check the man oh co or sync to see if you can show
> > progress in one of those as you make copies. Just a thought. Ted P.
> "...check the man oh co or sync..." is entirely greek to me.  Can you
> elaborate a little? (I assume it translates to something like 'make
> sure it's plugged in' or 'try Google, idiot.'  I'm in the process of
> discovering that this last might be a good idea...)
>
> Thanks,
> Tom
> >
> > On Thu, Aug 8, 2019, 1:02 PM Tom Ashcraft <trailerdog234 at comcast.net>
> > wrote:
> > > I've got Debian 10 XFCE installed to and running from a USB
> > > stick.
> > > Inside that I have two identical Debian minimal-install server VMs
> > > that
> > > run under QEMU/KVM behind NAT so that I can have the two talk to
> > > each
> > > other as a network inside the single computer.  This for purposes
> > > of
> > > safely practicing and experimenting with things like SSH keys and
> > > WireGuard without external network or internet access.  All, well
> > > and
> > > good; works great as long as I stick to the same computer and nic
> > > with
> > > which I created the VMs.
> > >
> > > The problem is that I have limited storage for snapshots and clones
> > > so
> > > that currently, if I screw something up or switch computers,
> > > experience
> > > indicates that I have to create new individual VMs by installing
> > > from
> > > scratch to start again clean. That takes a long time.
> > >
> > > So I'm thinking that before I waste too much more time reinventing
> > > the
> > > wheel every time I go 'round, that I ought to be able to copy
> > > clean
> > > unused images of my two VMs on another USB stick so that I can
> > > just
> > > conveniently delete and replace as required.
> > >
> > > First question:  I ought to be able to create an elastically sized
> > > VM
> > > with QEMU/KVM in a manner similar to how dynamically allocated
> > > storage
> > > works in VirtualBox so that the image I copy across different USB
> > > sticks
> > > can be relatively small and quick to copy?
> > >
> > > Second question:  At present I must copy via command line as root
> > > or
> > > with sudo as Thunar GUI file manager won't give me permission by
> > > any
> > > means I can discover.  I'd like to use Thunar so I can get some
> > > visual
> > > feedback about copy progress.  I ought to be able to run Thunar
> > > from the
> > > desktop as root somehow, right?
> > >
> > > As I write I *think* my old laptop with USB 2.0 is somewhere in
> > > the
> > > midst of copying an 8.0 GB image, but it keeps timing-out into
> > > lockscreen, and for all I know something has gone wrong.  The USB
> > > sticks
> > > are warm as a cup of coffee, but the cursor in the terminal is
> > > just
> > > sitting there without blinking and it's all taking way too long:
> > >
> > > tom at debian10xfceUSB: /var/lib/libvirt/images$ sudo cp generic-
> > > 2.qcow2
> > > /media/tom/C58A-66EE/
> > >
> > > All hints and advice are welcome.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Tom
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > nmglug mailing list
> > > nmglug at lists.nmglug.org
> > > http://lists.nmglug.org/listinfo.cgi/nmglug-nmglug.org
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > nmglug mailing list
> > nmglug at lists.nmglug.org
> > http://lists.nmglug.org/listinfo.cgi/nmglug-nmglug.org
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> nmglug mailing list
> nmglug at lists.nmglug.org
> http://lists.nmglug.org/listinfo.cgi/nmglug-nmglug.org
>

On Thu, Aug 8, 2019, 3:55 PM Tom Ashcraft <trailerdog234 at comcast.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 2019-08-08 at 15:11 -0600, Ted Pomeroy wrote:
> > Tom, have you tried invoking thunar from a root terminal.
> No.  Until now I hadn't thought of anything so sensible and obvious.
> So far (other than the scary warnings about possibly damaging my
> system) it looks like that might be just what the doctor ordered.
>
> > Also you might check the man oh co or sync to see if you can show
> > progress in one of those as you make copies. Just a thought. Ted P.
> "...check the man oh co or sync..." is entirely greek to me.  Can you
> elaborate a little? (I assume it translates to something like 'make
> sure it's plugged in' or 'try Google, idiot.'  I'm in the process of
> discovering that this last might be a good idea...)
>
> Thanks,
> Tom
> >
> > On Thu, Aug 8, 2019, 1:02 PM Tom Ashcraft <trailerdog234 at comcast.net>
> > wrote:
> > > I've got Debian 10 XFCE installed to and running from a USB
> > > stick.
> > > Inside that I have two identical Debian minimal-install server VMs
> > > that
> > > run under QEMU/KVM behind NAT so that I can have the two talk to
> > > each
> > > other as a network inside the single computer.  This for purposes
> > > of
> > > safely practicing and experimenting with things like SSH keys and
> > > WireGuard without external network or internet access.  All, well
> > > and
> > > good; works great as long as I stick to the same computer and nic
> > > with
> > > which I created the VMs.
> > >
> > > The problem is that I have limited storage for snapshots and clones
> > > so
> > > that currently, if I screw something up or switch computers,
> > > experience
> > > indicates that I have to create new individual VMs by installing
> > > from
> > > scratch to start again clean. That takes a long time.
> > >
> > > So I'm thinking that before I waste too much more time reinventing
> > > the
> > > wheel every time I go 'round, that I ought to be able to copy
> > > clean
> > > unused images of my two VMs on another USB stick so that I can
> > > just
> > > conveniently delete and replace as required.
> > >
> > > First question:  I ought to be able to create an elastically sized
> > > VM
> > > with QEMU/KVM in a manner similar to how dynamically allocated
> > > storage
> > > works in VirtualBox so that the image I copy across different USB
> > > sticks
> > > can be relatively small and quick to copy?
> > >
> > > Second question:  At present I must copy via command line as root
> > > or
> > > with sudo as Thunar GUI file manager won't give me permission by
> > > any
> > > means I can discover.  I'd like to use Thunar so I can get some
> > > visual
> > > feedback about copy progress.  I ought to be able to run Thunar
> > > from the
> > > desktop as root somehow, right?
> > >
> > > As I write I *think* my old laptop with USB 2.0 is somewhere in
> > > the
> > > midst of copying an 8.0 GB image, but it keeps timing-out into
> > > lockscreen, and for all I know something has gone wrong.  The USB
> > > sticks
> > > are warm as a cup of coffee, but the cursor in the terminal is
> > > just
> > > sitting there without blinking and it's all taking way too long:
> > >
> > > tom at debian10xfceUSB: /var/lib/libvirt/images$ sudo cp generic-
> > > 2.qcow2
> > > /media/tom/C58A-66EE/
> > >
> > > All hints and advice are welcome.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Tom
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > nmglug mailing list
> > > nmglug at lists.nmglug.org
> > > http://lists.nmglug.org/listinfo.cgi/nmglug-nmglug.org
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > nmglug mailing list
> > nmglug at lists.nmglug.org
> > http://lists.nmglug.org/listinfo.cgi/nmglug-nmglug.org
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> nmglug mailing list
> nmglug at lists.nmglug.org
> http://lists.nmglug.org/listinfo.cgi/nmglug-nmglug.org
>
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