Move from ESXi to PVE

[ernieg92]

Hello. I need to migrate my VMs fro ESXi 6 to PVE. I'm not new to Linux but I am new to Proxmox. I've reviewed the installation guide and it seems pretty straight forward. However, I want to make sure I do this correctly as I need as little downtime as possible (this is a home network, not commercial/production, but still utilize the VMs daily). I've never used Linux volume management, so that is one weak point that I'm concerned will trip me up.

My current setup is a AMD FX(tm)-4350 Quad-Core Processor with 16 GB RAM. There are three HDD: 75GB (ESXi OS plus some other folders), 500GB (~350GB across 12 VMs), and 1TB (500GB provisioned; used as a second vHDD in the VM that serves as the NAS). I also have a 2TB external HDD. The 'always in use' VMs are two Ubuntu servers (one NAS, one pi-hole) but I occasionally fire up one of the other ones (Kali, Fedora) for testing, etc. Memory/CPU usage is usually not an issue except when running the Windows 10 VM (which doesn't get used much anymore).

Based on the install instructions, PVE will overwrite all selected disks so I will need to copy the VM folders to the external HDD (I do have backups of critical files elsewhere). I'll also generate an OVF for each VM to import the settings into PVE. I'll also need to use qemu-img to convert the VMDKs to qcow2 (or do I not need to do that if importing OVF?). Did I miss anything?

Alternatively, I can copy critical folders from the running VMs (/etc. /opt, etc.) to the external HDD and start with brand new VMs in PVE (not my favorite options as I lose a lot of customization done in the VMs).

Any advice appreciated. Thanks!

 

[bbgeek17]

You can do all of the above, ie backup, export, copy. If you want additional hedge - buy a new disk and install PVE on that disk.

Since you are already running virtualization environment, you can install nested PVE and test your procedure on a small/test VM.

Good luck

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Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox

 

[ernieg92]

A new drive--that's an even better idea.

Will PVE be able to read ESXi datastores so I can convert to qcow2 on the box? Or will I still need to copy externally?

 

[bbgeek17]

You can review many of the posts that come up in this google search "mount vmfs linux". I have not tried it.
But given that a second disk allows you to do a non-destructive install, you will have a chance to try the above and if that doesnt work do other options.

good luck

---

Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox

 

[ernieg92]

Thank you for your help, bbgeek17. I have most of my VMs now imported into PVE.

Alas, I did run into a couple of issues. My NAS drive is recognized by fdisk but there are no recognizable partitions (no partition table found). In ESXi, I just created the datastore with the drive so I don't know how it created the partitions. Looks like I'm adding a second drive in the PVE VM and restoring from backup. I also have a shared /home partition for some of the Linux VMs but it looks like I won't be able to use that. From what I've read, lvm-thin isn't shareable (unless I'm reading the documentation wrong).

The other issue is I have to manually boot PVE. For some reason, the ESXi drive (which is the first drive) won't pass the boot over to PVE drive. I guess I'll create another post for that.