VMware Cloud Community
colman77
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

converter error "Host <ip> key can't be retrieved.

Hi all,

I'm having an issue using the standalone converter to p2v a linux (CentOS) box.  It gets to 1% then fails with the following error:

FAILED: A general system error occurred:

Network error. Host 10.0.2.19 key can't be retrieved. (return code 2)


(Note: 10.0.2.19 is the IP of the CentOS box.)


Running 5.01 build 1087880 of the converter (latest as of today), and ESXi 5.1.


Anyone ever come across this error before or know what it means?  Google isn't very helpful...


Thanks in advance,

Colin

1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
colman77
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Yes... a bit embarassing, but on the machine to be virtualized, /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny were configured to deny access to the subnet that my ESXi server is on.  After fixing those files and confirming that I can ssh to the machine from my virtualization subnet, I get past that error.

Hope that helps!

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
22 Replies
garyacarr
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I wondered if you had any luck resolving this?

Reply
0 Kudos
colman77
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Yes... a bit embarassing, but on the machine to be virtualized, /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny were configured to deny access to the subnet that my ESXi server is on.  After fixing those files and confirming that I can ssh to the machine from my virtualization subnet, I get past that error.

Hope that helps!

Reply
0 Kudos
sergiopinto8
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hello Colman77!!

I am having the same problem you had when usind the stand alone converte. I get

FAILED: A general system error occurred:

Network error. Host IP key can't be retrieved. (return code 2)

I am editing the files hosts.allow and hosts.deny writting sshd; IP in hosts.allow and sshd: ALL in hosts.deny, but it doesn't work, Could you tell me what did you write in those files?

Thank you very much!! Smiley Happy




Reply
0 Kudos
colman77
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

hosts.allow:

   ALL:LOCAL,10.11.12.

hosts.deny:

   ALL:ALL

My VMware server and the helper VM were both in 10.11.12.0 /24

Reply
0 Kudos
sergiopinto8
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hi!

I tried

hosts.allow:

     ALL:LOCAL,192.168.197.

hosts.deny:

     ALL:ALL

My IPs are 192.168.197 and 197.168.197.128.

The last task that is done before the error is "Connected to the Converter helper on the destination virtual Machine"

Do you see anythong wrong?

Thank you!

Reply
0 Kudos
colman77
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Don't see any obvious syntax errors or anything. 

Is the Converter helper VM also in that same subnet?

Reply
0 Kudos
warcdj7
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hi,

I get the same problem as you had

FAILED: A general system error occurred:

Network error. Host IP key can't be retrieved. (return code 2)

If the destination is an ESX host - connect to the server using its IP address instead of DNS host name.

In Conversion Wizard press Ignore when you get message about SSL certificate problems.

Hope that helps Smiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos
Cabfire
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hello,

I was wondering if the problem was solved and in wich way as i have exactly the same prob here.

Reply
0 Kudos
neatmachine
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hi,

I had the same issue. The hosts.allow and hosts.deny files were empty, so no solution there. I discovered that the source machine had only SSH v1 enabled. After I enabled SSH v2 in /etc/sshd/sshd_config, the process continued succesfully.

Reply
0 Kudos
gosyrenity
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Happened to me exactly, the server is within same network and the sshd settings are ok.

Any idea what else can be checked?

Reply
0 Kudos
patanassov
VMware Employee
VMware Employee
Jump to solution

The main point is the destination VM to be able to ssh to the source machine. An easy way to check would be to try ssh from another VM in the same VM network.

That said, the potential problems that I can think of:

  - there must exist a route from the VM network to the source machine network, i.e. the VM network must not be isolated (neither the source machine network, obviously)

  - both networks must not be VLAN isolated

  - firewall settings on the source machine (as discussed in the thread)

  - firewalls between the destination and source machines

  - using incompatible IP versions (e.g. source is IPv6 only, destination is IPv4 only)

There may be others, too. I am not a network expert.

HTH

Plamen

Specnet
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hi

I just change from name to IP of the source machine in convertion wizard and it goes ok .

Ashraf

ivivanov
VMware Employee
VMware Employee
Jump to solution

Another possible reason for this error is to have the SSH server on the source configured with a DSA key,  however Converter currently supports only RSA keys. If there is only DSA key on the source SSH server, this error will occur.

A workaround could be to add an RSA key on the source SSH server and retry.

__________
It is worse!
Reply
0 Kudos
donellejoseph
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Thank you Ashraf. This works for me too.

"I just change from name to IP of the source machine in convertion wizard and it goes ok ."

(-donellejoseph--Philippines)

Reply
0 Kudos
NGHA
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hi,

during configuring the conversion task, try to use a different IP address for the Helper VM Network. both IP addresses should see each other. it worked with me

Reply
0 Kudos
zefe
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I also encountered such a problem。Pay attention to this:When you convert a powered-on Linux machine, Converter Standalone creates a Helper virtual machine on the destination. The Helper virtual machine needs network access to the source machine to clone the source files. Default conversion settings enforce automatic acquisition of an IPv4 address and a DNS server for the Helper virtual machine, but you can set up this network connection manually.@@

Tags (1)
eric87m
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I'm getting this error trying to convert Ubuntu 14.04. Tried all the suggestions in this thread like editing the hosts.allow file, but still getting "key can't be retrieved". Converter and source machine are in same VLAN. Destination vSphere server is in a different VLAN but everything is open between the two. Could this be the problem? It's impossible to move the source to the destination VLAN a the moment.

This is with Converter Standalone 6.1.1, amazing they still haven't fixed this bug...

Reply
0 Kudos
MarcelTavares
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I just change from name to IP of the source machine in convertion wizard and it goes ok .

--------------------

That, sir, saved my *ss.

Thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
ethank_web
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I had the same issue on Converter Standalore 6.1.1 while trying to migrate a CentOS server and found the problem to have been caused by iptables rules inside the source server. After disabling the iptables rules I was able to migrate it smoothly.

Reply
0 Kudos