Transfer VM's between 2 ESX 3.0.1 servers without SAN

[PatrickWE]

Hi,

Got 2 ESX 3.0.1 boxes, each with it's own local SCSI disks and was wondering what is the easiest and cheapest way to transfer Virtual Machines from 1 to another manually.

I don't have a SAN or Vmotion, and don't need automatic failover, just want to move some VM's from 1 ESX box to another...

Both ESX boxes see an external NFS storage, and am familiar with vmkfstools -i, but have several concerns by using this tool :

1: Can I move a vmdk using vmkfstools -i tool from 1 ESX box to another direclty, without first moving it to the NFS drive. In other words, can I mound the VMFS parition on ESX-A on to ESX B...

2: If I move the VMDK, I still need to create a machine and use the existing disk, but what about the Network config and MAC address, I seem to loose this info, so was wondering...

Thanks \!!!

[jonathanp]

Hi,

you could use bartpe's iso to make a ghost of one vm to another one.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

The way it is done is just by creating a vm on the new one and do it bootable on the iso image of the bartpe iso image.

Boot the source with the same iso and perform a ghost over the network.

This way the network setting will remain the same but the mac may change.

Or just copy the vmdk using "scp" on the new server. (you'll have to enable it with the esxcfg-firewall command)

Hope this will help.

Jon

[admin]

1/ No.

2/ Yes if you scp'd/vmkfstools the VM over to the other box you'll need to create a new .vmx file, unless you move that over too and register it with the host. Either way it won't affect the IP address or any other configuration within the guest, but the MAC will change.

Have you got Virtual Center? If so, just power off the VM, then right click -> migrate and select to move the VM files to a new datastore, it'll sort everything out for you and can go from local storage-> local storage as the copy is done over the network via the VC server.

[PatrickWE]

How do I register the VMX if I copy it from ESX-A to ESX-B...

And we don't have Virtual Center...

Thanks \!!!

[wunderon]

I think Vmware Converter would also be able to do this.

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

[admin]

Point the VI client at ESX-B, click the host, on the summary page right click -> datastore browser on the local datastore you copied the VM files to, a new window will pop up. Browse to the .vmx file you've copied over, click it, the blue vmware logo in the top left of the window will light up, click it to register the VM with the host.

[PatrickWE]

Is there anything host specific in the VMX file... just wondering, but from what I see in there, as long as the ESX boxes are on the same version ( for the hardware level ), the rest shoud be ok, but not quite sure about the line : sched.swap.derivedName. It seems to have the VMFS identification in it...

Thanks for any help on this \!!!

[PatrickWE]

Veeam FastSCP version seems to be able to copy VM machines between 2 ESX boxes. I'm trying it now and it works...

[pgregg]

You already have all you need to duplicate the VMs from one box to the other. You can tar up the VM directory to your NFS space and on the target box just untar it back into its storage1 folder. Double click on storage1 on the target box in VI Client, find your untarred folder and add the .vmx to your Inventory, and power up.

ESX will ask you to create a new ID for the box, do so if you are making a copy, keep the old one if you are moving it (you probably want to create one to get a new mac address, new networking, etc).

Alternatively, install rsync (will compile from src and install), enable root login via /etc/ssh/sshd_config and kill -HUP sshd's pid. Then you can rsync+ssh VMdirs from one box to the other.

No need to go near vmkfstools at all for any of this, or create VMs to hosts disks, etc - just dupe and be free. You might also like to look at my vmclone.pl (first hit on google)

[Weatherman]

Thank you for that GEM of a post!!! That is extremely helpful information that I have been unable to find anywhere else. You made my day!