Copy VM/VMDK for to send to vendor

[dborgill]

Ok, I have never got this request before but before spending too much time on this, I'd thought I'd ask the experts.

Our webmaster has a request from one of our vendors to get an actual copy of the VM/VMDK to be able to bring up at their location for troubleshooting and analyzing the system. They talked about zipping the files and FTPing them. I would imagine this would work fine if the vendor has an ESX 3.0.1 server they can import the VM into.

Also, I have never used player/converter.. would this be a good scenario?

Any ideas?

EDIT: The VM has two drives, one is 10 gig and the other is 15 gig.

Message was edited by:

dborgill

[Rob_Bohmann1]

If you have Virtual Center, it might be easier to just create a clone.

Remember to create a unique local account on the box before you clone to share with the vendor, with admin access. (I always forget this!)

Also send them a copy of the vmx. To do this you will need to shutdown the vm, so if you must keep the server running, then converter might be the way to go..

[admin · Accepted solution]

Yep the Converter could help you here. Ask them what flavour of VMware they are planning to use to run the VM, then use the Converter to grab the VM from your ESX server and copy it to your local machine in the appropriate format. It deals with all the .vmx changes etc, and will bring over both drives. Then just S/FTP the files over to them.

[dborgill]

Thanks guys. I will try the converter method first.

[Mike_Fink]

Rob,

Are you sure you need to shut down the VM to do a

"cp" operation on the VMX file? You should not have to shutdown the VM for any of these operations, you should be able to add a snapshot and then export out the VMDK file, and then copy out the VMX.

It's a small detail, but you should be able to do this without the need for shutdown (IMHO) on the VM you want to send to them.

[Rob_Bohmann1]

you're right, I wasn't clear about the vmx(meant shutting down for the clone operation) and did not think about using a redo log.... good option.