VMware Communities
extrashot
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

migrating KVM LVM images to vmware

I am using KVM on Ubuntu Server 10.04. and Virtual Machines are running on it in LVM.
I have to migrate some of them to Vmware server.How can I achieve this.
I searched and came across some links but they all talked converting vmdk images to qcow or so.
In this case I have OS in LVM.

http://blog.bodhizazen.net/linux/convert-vmware-vmdk-to-kvm-qcow2-or-virtualbox-vdi/

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/224712

but any of the above did not helped me.

Can any one suggest me what do I need to do to achieve the same?

Reply
0 Kudos
8 Replies
idle-jam
Immortal
Immortal

instead of converting the virtual machine disk to a vmware compatible format, i would suggest using a vmware converter to perform a virtual 2 virtual migration. you can view the steps @ http://linhost.info/2009/04/vmware-converter-installation-on-ubuntu-linux/

extrashot
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks I have been looking for such a thing.

How ever following your link I reached

http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/overview.html

I do not have to convert a physical machine to a VM.

So let me know if this is the thing you wanted me to try out.

Also

1) Does it works for the guest OS which are running inside LVM's on Ubuntu?

2) Do I need to shutdown any of the VM on which I am doing such an operation?

I have very less space on bare metal where the hypervisor is running.So I would do all that on an NFS mounted partition.

Reply
0 Kudos
idle-jam
Immortal
Immortal

Yes you do not need to do a physical to virtual, however with the complexity of the above tutorial i would advise doing using a converter. using the physical to virtual option (eventho' it's a virtual).

According to http://www.vmware.com/support/converter/doc/releasenotes_conv40.html, yes it supports up to 12.

It can be hot migration with the virtual machine powered on.

Good Luck with the conversion 😃

Reply
0 Kudos
extrashot
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks I tried and got following error during installation

Generating SSL Server Certificate

Unable to get the last modification timestamp of the destination file
/etc/vmware-converter/ssl/rui.key.

Execution aborted.

How ever when I searched this message I came across this thread

http://www.geniv.net/unable-to-get-the-last-modification-timestamp-of-the-destination-file-vmware-in...

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

I got a lot of errors doing so.You can have a look at the errors here

http://pastebin.com/HdsZhakA

Reply
0 Kudos
idle-jam
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

you can check this out : http://communities.vmware.com/thread/204091

normally i would install the converter on a PC and then do a remote migration. this would prevent additional components needed just to install the whole vmware converter.

Reply
0 Kudos
extrashot
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

You mean to say I install it on my laptop and where it asked me an option to run on a remote server  I specify some port on my local machine.

So in that case do I need to install some thing different on my laptop and client server as well where all these VMs are actually active or same thing installed only at one place should work.

I had entered yes while installing when it asked for client and server as well.

Reply
0 Kudos
extrashot
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The installation of vmware-converter-client on a pc was successful.(The OS is Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit desktop edition)

When I executed command

vmware-converter-client

I got a GUI in front of me.

In the option to specifiy source--->Select source type

                                                       |

                                                       |

                                                       -->Powered on machine

          in the text boxes A remote machine ( I gave the IP ) and username passwords.Selected OS family Linux and clicked next.

               Here I got error Unable to detect disks or volumes on the source machine.Please make sure that the source is a supported Linux distribution.

This VM is running on a Ubuntu server which is using KVM and the Guest OS is CentOS.

So this also failed.

Now any clue as what more do I need?

Reply
0 Kudos
WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

The easiest way I've done this is to use Clonezilla Live by first creating and empty Virtual Machine with a virtual hard disk  the same size as the source hard drive and then boot both Virtual Machines with Clonezilla Live and  image the source hard drive to the target hard drive via the LAN.   Once imaged the Virtual Machine typically will boot without any issues  and you now have a working clone.  If you cannot Network the two together you can create an image  to a USB Drive and restore it to the target Virtual Machine from the USB  Drive, as an example.

Reply
0 Kudos