moving VM to another host

[sagar666]

Hi,

In one of my host having hardware problem i mean harddisk showing orange light and we configured raid 0 on that so we can't replace New hard disk .But luckily it is working slowly.so am trying to move VM to another working host but it is not happening getting   vpxa agent error. please tell me how to fix it or any other way to do to get a data 

[abhilashhb]

Hi Sagar,

Can you paste the exact error you are getting while trying to migrate the VM?

[DavoudTeimouri]

I guess, you don't have shared storage.

If no, please power off your virtual machine, remove that from inventory and then copy that to another storage manually.

[admin]

Moving VM’s from one storage location to another

1. Create a full backup of VM before proceeding

2. Create the same folder on storage location you are moving to.

3. Power Off Virtual Machine

4. Move to the “/vmfs/volumes/” directory

5. Run command

a. vmkfstools –i (location of VM Server) (location to put VM Server)

b. vmkfstools –i `pwd`/storage#/(VM Folder)/(VM Server Name).vmdk `pwd`/storage#/(VM Folder)/VM Server Name).vmdk

6. Copy vmx File

a. cp (VM Server Location File) (VM Server ending location)

7. Remove VM From Inventory

8. Go to Configuration on Server Open the storage location VM moved to right click on vmx file and add to inventory.

9. Power on the VM

10. Remove files once ran a couple days in new location.

[tomtom901]

@DavoudTeimouri You can do a cold VM migrate if you have vCenter..

[ch1ta]

Also, you can put into use Veeam Free with its in-built Quick Migration functionality. With Veeam Quick Migration you can migrate one or more VMs without any issues between ESX(i) hosts, datastores or both.

Based on my experience, all you will need to is to add both hosts to the console of backup server, select required VM and quick migrate it. That's all.

Cheers.

[admin]

vCenter has a default 15 minute timeout for any task. Starting with the vCenter 2.5 Update 4 release, to prevent VI Client from displaying unnecessary timeout error messages, you can configure the timeout values by editing the vpxd.cfg file and the vpxa.cfg file of the source and destination ESX host.

Note: If you are using VCB, and your backup failed due to a timeout, check your virtual machine for a backup snapshot which has been left behind.

Lengthy Tasks which Time Out

When a task is reported to timeout within vCenter, the task may continue to run in the ESX host level. Certain tasks (such as a snapshot consolidation) may take a long time to complete and should not be interrupted. For information on how to identify tasks within a VMware ESX host, see Collecting information about tasks in VMware ESX (1013003).

Note: In the case of snapshot consolidation, even though the VI Client timeout occurs, the operation on the ESX host is still running. You can verify by observing the .vmdk file for the virtual machine. It is updated every minute which means the delta files are being committed to the .vmdk file.

vCenter Timeout Settings

To change the timeout value in the vCenter Server, update vpxd.cfg on vCenter and vpxa.cfg on the ESX:

1. Log into the vCenter Server with the appropriate permissions.

2. Open the vpxd.cfg file in a text editor. The default location for the file is:
   C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\vpxd.cfg

3. For Windows 7 and Windows 2008, the default location for the file is:
   
   C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\vpxd.cfg

4. To increase the timeout values for the virtual machine migration task, add the following timeout parameter in the vpxd.cfg file:
   <config>
   ..
   <task>
   <timeout>10800</timeout>
   </task>
   ..</config>
   
   Note: The value 10800 can be changed based on your requirements. This example uses 10800 seconds, or 3 hours.

5. To increase the SOAP layer blocking call timeout, add the following values in the vpxd.cfg file:
   
   <config>
   ..
   <vmomi>
   <soapStubAdapter>
   <blockingTimeoutSeconds>10800</blockingTimeoutSeconds>
   </soapStubAdapter>
   </vmomi>
   ..
   </config>
   
   Note: The value 10800 can be changed based on your requirements. This example uses 10800 seconds, or 3 hours. This line may not be present in ESX 4.0.

6. Restart the vCenter Server service. For more information, see Starting, stopping, and restarting vCenter services (1003895).