How to mount a xen image ?

How to mount a xen image ?

  1. First you need to find out the partitions and the startsector of partitions: [root@xen rruban]# file rheltest.img rheltest.img: x86 boot sector, GRand Unified Bootloader (0.94); partition 1: ID=0x83, active, starthead 1, startsector 63, 208782 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x8e, starthead 0, startsector 208845, 3871665 sectors, code offset 0x48 There are 3 partitions inside the image file. The startsector of each partition is also listed. Boot partition will have start sector 63.
  2. Now you need to get the sector size: [root@xen]fdisk -lu rheltest.img

Disk rheltest.img: 0 MB, 0 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 0 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System rheltest.img1 * 63 208844 104391 83 Linux rheltest.img2 208845 4080509 1935832+ 8e Linux LVM The above shows the sector byte size is 512 byte.

  1. To calculating the offset: offset = startsector x sectorbyte_size. The startsector is 63 for the first partition, therefore the first partition offset is: 63x512=32256
  2. Finally, to mount the xen image, use: mount -o loop,offset=32256 test.img /foldername