"Cannot Reconfigure" Red Hat virtual machine in converter 4.0.1

[jplien01]

I downloaded a Fedora 11 virtual appliance from the virtual appliance marketplace, and would like to migrate it to one of my ESXi servers. It runs fine in Server 1.x, but when I try to configure it using Converter 4.0.1 standalone on Windows XP, it says it cannot reconfigure the VM. I tried converting it anyway, but the resulting system would not boot, giving a black screen about halfway through the boot process, with no visible error messages. I tried booting into single user, same result. My hope is that there is some problem with the VMX file (e.g. virtualHW.version, config,version, or guestOS type) that is preventing converter from trying to reconfigure it. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[vmweathers · Accepted solution]

Converter does not support "just reconfiguration" of Linux VMs. You could try using Linux P2V to import it.

I think you might have left out a step in describing your problem; i.e., how did you migrate the VM to the ESXi server? Since it's a virtual appliance, why don't you just import it to the ESX directly using VI Client? Or you can use Converter to import it?

Alternatively, you could try loading the machine on a locally hosted product, like VMware Workstation, and then using Converter's Linux P2V feature to import the live machine.

(If your question has been resolved please mark the answers as "Helpful" or "Correct".)

[jplien01]

Thanks for the response. I had not thought of doing P2V from the VM while it was running (still in an old mindset I guess).

When I tried to do the V2V conversion, it warned that it would not be able to reconfigure the system, and sure enough when I tried to start the converted machine it would not boot. Although I got the VM from the Virtual Appliance Marketplace, it's not in OVF format, so I can't import it using the VI Client.

I am running it as a P2V now, and it seems to think it will be able to reconfigure it. I'll follow up when it's done and I know if it worked.

[jplien01]

Ok, I was able to successfully do P2V conversion of my Fedora 11 VM while it was running on VMware server. It's now living happily on my ESXi box. A minor complication was that I kept getting errors connecting to the helper VM. I turned off the windows firewall on the system I was using, but still got them. So instead of pointing directly at the ESXi system, I pointed to my vCenter server instead. Once I did that, the conversion ran with no problems.