[Ubuntu 18.04.2] Receiving "error: no such device: root" in VirtualBox/ESXi with converted from qcow2 to vmdk on cloud .img, with Packer qemu builder

[Dayman Cash]

Is anyone familiar with initial booting issues in Virtual Box/ESXi hosts with Ubuntu 18.04 initiated from Packer? We are migrating from 14.04/16.04 cloud images which have always worked fine end to end. Using qemu version 4.0.0, Packer 1.4.2, on Ubuntu 16.04. The image work sequence is: .img read into packer, booted and exported to qcow2, then converted to vmdk with "qemu-img convert" (qemu-img convert -f qcow2 -O vmdk -o subformat=streamOptimized packer_img.qcow2 packer_img.vmdk).

Here's a snippet of the json packer file:

  "builders": [{

    "type": "qemu",

    "iso_url": "ubuntu-18.04.2-server-cloudimg-amd64.img",

    "iso_checksum": "aa5bbaf6a3ec34001dc43b10de62d304bb6e956b262e85f554b2fed0e1250714",

    "iso_checksum_type": "sha256",

    "disk_image": true,

    "output_directory": "{{user `output_directory`}}",

    "disk_size": 10000,

    "format": "qcow2",

    "disk_compression": false,

    "headless": true,

    "accelerator": "kvm",

    "ssh_username": "{{user `username`}}",

    "ssh_password": "{{user `username`}}",

    "ssh_port": 22,

    "ssh_wait_timeout": "{{user `ssh_timeout`}}",

    "vm_name": "{{user `image_name`}}",

    "use_default_display": true,

    "shutdown_command": "sudo shutdown -h now",

    "qemuargs": [

      ["-m", "4096M"],

      ["-smp", "4"],

      ["-cdrom", "cloud.img"],

      ["-smbios", "type=1,serial=ds=nocloud"],

      ["-serial", "mon:stdio"]

    ]

  }],

  "provisioners": [{

    "type": "shell",

    "inline": [

      "while [ ! -f /var/lib/cloud/instance/boot-finished ]; do echo 'Waiting for cloud-init...'; sleep 1; done",

      "ssh-keyscan github.com >> /home/{{user `username`}}/.ssh/known_hosts"

    ]

  },

[Rickard von Essen]

Could you provide some more details. I guess this is because the disk is connected in a different way making it appear as a different device.

Some things to check:

Where is this error comming from, VirtualBox or the Linux kernel trying to mount the boot dev?

Can you show grub.conf, etc

Kernel arguments

Vmdk configuration, how is the disk configured? 

What device is this when running on Qemu and on VirtualBox? 

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[Dayman Cash]

Hi Rickard, thanks for the response, my apologies for the delayed response.

I have traced the root cause, which dealt with the sensitivity of the UUID impacting the boot loader by setting GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true inside of /etc/default/grub. The boot loader now functions as intended. Thanks again.

Dayman

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