I have a couple of projects that are deployed on Windows, so I use a virtual Windows machine on my Ubuntu box for development. At first, I tried using Samba to mount a share to my virtual machine, but that ended up causing problems. If my virtual server went down and I forgot to unmount, bad things happened.
Googling around, I discovered a how-to on how to mount the virtual machine disk directly via loopback. I decided to write an init script for it:
#! /bin/sh ### BEGIN INIT INFO # Provides: mount-windows-image # Required-Start: $remote_fs # Required-Stop: $remote_fs # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5 # Default-Stop: 0 1 6 # Short-Description: Mounts a KVM windows image ### END INIT INFO # Author: Jeremy Stephens <viking415@gmail.com> # # Please remove the "Author" lines above and replace them # with your own name if you copy and modify this script. # Do NOT "set -e" # PATH should only include /usr/* if it runs after the mountnfs.sh script PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin DESC="Mounts a KVM Windows image" SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/mount-windows-image DEV_FILE=/var/run/mount-windows-image MOUNT_DIR=/mnt/win IMAGE_FILE=/etc/libvirt/qemu/xp.img UID=1017 GID=1017 FMASK=0137 DMASK=0027 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables . /lib/init/vars.sh # Define LSB log_* functions. # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.0-6) to ensure that this file is present. . /lib/lsb/init-functions # # Function that starts the daemon/service # do_start() { # Return # 0 if daemon has been started # 1 if daemon was already running # 2 if daemon could not be started if [ `mount -l | grep $MOUNT_DIR | wc -l` -gt 0 ]; then return 1 else DEV=`losetup -f` echo $DEV > $DEV_FILE losetup $DEV $IMAGE_FILE kpartx -a $DEV mount -t ntfs -o uid=$UID,gid=$GID,fmask=$FMASK,dmask=$DMASK \ /dev/mapper/`echo $DEV | awk -F/ '{print $3}'`p1 $MOUNT_DIR if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then return 0 else kpartx -d $DEV losetup -d $DEV rm -f $DEV_FILE return 2 fi fi } # # Function that stops the daemon/service # do_stop() { # Return # 0 if daemon has been stopped # 1 if daemon was already stopped # 2 if daemon could not be stopped # other if a failure occurred if [ `mount -l | grep $MOUNT_DIR | wc -l` -eq 0 ]; then return 1 else umount $MOUNT_DIR if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then sleep 1 DEV=`cat $DEV_FILE` kpartx -d $DEV losetup -d $DEV rm -f $DEV_FILE return 0 else return 2 fi fi } # # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service # #do_reload() { # # # # If the daemon can reload its configuration without # # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP), # # then implement that here. # # # start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME # return 0 #} case "$1" in start) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME" do_start case "$?" in 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;; 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;; esac ;; stop) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME" do_stop case "$?" in 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;; 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;; esac ;; #reload|force-reload) # # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'. # #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME" #do_reload #log_end_msg $? #;; # restart|force-reload) # # # # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the # # 'force-reload' alias # # # log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME" # do_stop # case "$?" in # 0|1) # do_start # case "$?" in # 0) log_end_msg 0 ;; # 1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running # *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start # esac # ;; # *) # # Failed to stop # log_end_msg 1 # ;; # esac # ;; *) #echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2 echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop}" >&2 exit 3 ;; esac :
Install the script in /etc/init.d and make it executable. Make sure you change the following variables in the script: UID, GID, MOUNT_DIR, IMAGE_FILE. You can add the script to the boot process via the update-rc.d command:
chmod +x /etc/init.d/mount-windows-image update-rc.d mount-windows-image defaults
This script mounts the first partition on a Windows virtual image, and it assumes the disk is formatted as NTFS. Tweaking the script to fit your needs shouldn’t be too difficult. I use Ubuntu, although I imagine the script would work in Debian. Your mileage may vary.
Note: I believe this only works with raw virtual images. Also, It’s probably a good idea to at least skim the post I linked above for additional information and caveats.