Working with .ova: Converting .vmdk to LV

[root@xen-home srv]# file CentOS-6.4-i386-minimal-disk1.vmdk
CentOS-6.4-i386-minimal-disk1.vmdk: VMware4 disk image

[root@xen-home srv]# qemu-img-xen convert -O raw CentOS-6.4-i386-minimal-disk1.vmdk /var/lib/libvirt/images/CentOS-6.4-i386-minimal-disk1.raw

[root@xen-home srv]# file /var/lib/libvirt/images/CentOS-6.4-i386-minimal-disk1.raw
/var/lib/libvirt/images/CentOS-6.4-i386-minimal-disk1.raw:
x86 boot sector; GRand Unified Bootloader, stage1 version 0x3, boot drive 0x80, 1st sector stage2 0x849e8, GRUB version 0.94; \
partition 1: ID=0x83, active, starthead 32, startsector 2048, 1024000 sectors; \
partition 2: ID=0x8e, starthead 221, startsector 1026048, 36722688 sectors, code offset 0x48

[root@xen-home srv]# ll /var/lib/libvirt/images/CentOS-6.4-i386-minimal-disk1.raw
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19327352832 Sep  8 08:37 /var/lib/libvirt/images/CentOS-6.4-i386-minimal-disk1.raw

[root@xen-home srv]# lvcreate -n lv06 -L 20G vg00
  Logical volume "lv06" created.

[root@xen-home srv]# dd if=/var/lib/libvirt/images/CentOS-6.4-i386-minimal-disk1.raw of=/dev/vg00/lv06
37748736+0 records in
37748736+0 records out
19327352832 bytes (19 GB) copied, 1539.47 s, 12.6 MB/s

[root@xen-home srv]# kpartx /dev/vg00/lv06
vg00-lv06p1 : 0 1024000 /dev/vg00/lv06 2048
vg00-lv06p2 : 0 36722688 /dev/vg00/lv06 1026048

[root@xen-home srv]# kpartx -a /dev/vg00/lv06

[root@xen-home srv]# ll /dev/mapper/*p[0-9]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Sep  8 10:43 /dev/mapper/vg00-lv06p1 -> ../dm-22
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Sep  8 10:43 /dev/mapper/vg00-lv06p2 -> ../dm-23

#The first partition contains a filesystem:
[root@xen-home srv]# mount /dev/mapper/vg00-lv06p1 /mnt/One/1

# The second partition contains a PV (and, therefore, can not be mounted):
[root@xen-home srv]# mount /dev/mapper/vg00-lv06p2 /mnt/One/2
mount: unknown filesystem type 'LVM2_member'

[root@xen-home srv]# pvs
  PV                      VG       Fmt  Attr PSize   PFree
  /dev/mapper/vg00-lv06p2 VolGroup lvm2 a--   17.51g      0
  /dev/sda2               vg00     lvm2 a--  931.01g 888.00g
  /dev/sdf1                        lvm2 ---  512.00m 512.00m
  /dev/sdf2               vg00     lvm2 a--  931.01g 863.00g

[root@xen-home srv]# pvdisplay /dev/mapper/vg00-lv06p2
  --- Physical volume ---
  PV Name               /dev/mapper/vg00-lv06p2
  VG Name               VolGroup
  PV Size               17.51 GiB / not usable 3.00 MiB
  Allocatable           yes (but full)
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              4482
  Free PE               0
  Allocated PE          4482
  PV UUID               St69bd-3F9e-Nf1t-MJyi-ZseV-Xjsf-iZ3iV8

[root@xen-home srv]# vgs
  VG       #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize  VFree
  VolGroup   1   2   0 wz--n- 17.51g    0
  vg00       2  10   0 wz--n-  1.82t 1.71t

# Notice that the VolGroup LV's are NOT active:
[root@xen-home srv]# lvs VolGroup
  LV      VG       Attr       LSize  Pool Origin Data%  Meta%  Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert
  lv_root VolGroup -wi------- 16.51g
  lv_swap VolGroup -wi-------  1.00g

# After activating the VolGroup LV's, the LV's are visible in the /dev filesystem:

[root@xen-home srv]# lvchange -a y VolGroup/lv_root

[root@xen-home srv]# lvdisplay VolGroup/lv_root
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path                /dev/VolGroup/lv_root
  LV Name                lv_root
  VG Name                VolGroup
  LV UUID                DA53Rd-dRa3-CNRP-Jmb8-S7vl-1uAC-Anlxg0
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Creation host, time localhost.localdomain, 2013-03-08 23:56:11 -0800
  LV Status              available
  # open                 0
  LV Size                16.51 GiB
  Current LE             4226
  Segments               1
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     256
  Block device           253:24

[root@xen-home srv]# ll /dev/VolGroup/lv_root
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Sep  8 11:04 /dev/VolGroup/lv_root -> ../dm-24

# related reading
http://wiki.hackzine.org/sysadmin/kvm-import-ova.html
http://forum.proxmox.com/threads/2634-Migration-of-VMware-image-to-KVM-on-LVM-%28raw%29