Switching from CentOS 7/KVM to Proxmox

simon_lefisch

New Member
Jun 20, 2022
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Hello everyone!

New to the forum and I am looking for some advice, so I am hoping you guys can give me some direction.

I currently have a DIY server running CentOS 7/KVM, but I am looking to switch to Proxmox by the end of the year for easier manageability of my VMs. I believe I for the most part have all the info I need in order to easily make the switch, but had a few questions. So as of now, I am just trying to gather some info so I can get all my ducks lined up before switching to Proxmox. Here is a little info about my current setup:

Host OS: CentOS 7
Case: SilverStone Technology SST-CS380B-USA (8 front hot swap)
Mobo: Supermicro X10SRF-i
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2683v4 2.1GHz 16-core socket LGA2011-3
RAM: 112GB / 96GB working (2 x 8GB not functioning, need to troubleshoot)
Drives: 2x Crucial MX500 250GB SSDs (RAID1 / OS drives)
2x Crucial MX500 500GB SSDs (RAID1 / VM drives)
3x Western Digital WD6003FFBX 6TB NAS HDDs (part of NAS VM)
NICs: 2x 1Gbps mobo integrated
1x IPMI mobo integrated
Supermicro AOC-SG-i2 PCIe x4 2-port GbE card (Intel 82575EB chipset)
Supermicro AOC-SG-i4 PCIe 2.0 x8 4-port GbE card (Intel 82576EB chipset)
Other Peripherals: Tamppkon PCIe 2.0 6-port SATA3 controller card
ICY DOCK 4 x 2.5" SSD/HDD SAS/SATA mobile rack enclosure for 5.25" bay

So as stated, the 2x 250GB drives are in a RAID1 which holds the OS (CentOS 7). The 2x 500GB drives are also in a RAID1 config and that holds all my VMs. The 3x 6TB drives are a part of my TrueNAS VM...those drives are connected to the 6-port PCIe SATA card and is passed thru directly to the VM since TrueNAS needs direct communication with the drives. I also have my pfSense firewall running as a VM as well, but I am replacing it with a hardware pfSesne box. When that happens, I will most likely remove one of the PCIe NIC cards.

with all that in mind, I will be making some changes to the setup. I was thinking of getting a NVMe PCIe adapter card, installing 2x 128GB NVMe M.2 dries and install Proxmox on it. This would free up 2 slots in the ICY DOCK rack so I can use all 4 slots as my datastore for the VM files since the 3x 6TB drives will be passed thru to my TrueNAS VM (hopefully this is all making sense).

So here is my question.....the VMs have a the disk file (.qcow2, .img) AND XML. configuration files for the VMs. How do I import the configuration of my current VMs into Proxmox? Is it even possible? Or do I just have to reconfigure the VMs when the disk is imported into Proxmox? If I do have to reconfigure, how will that affect my VMs (ie; will they still be bootable)?

Again I am just trying to get some info so I can make the transition as seamless as possible. I don't mind if I have to do a little bit of reconfiguring, just want to be prepared for the amount that as to be done. If you need any other info or clarification on my setup or what I'm trying to accomplish, please let me know and I will gladly provide it. thanks in advance, and I am looking to forward to using Proxmox :)
 
So here is my question.....the VMs have a the disk file (.qcow2, .img) AND XML. configuration files for the VMs. How do I import the configuration of my current VMs into Proxmox? Is it even possible? Or do I just have to reconfigure the VMs when the disk is imported into Proxmox? If I do have to reconfigure, how will that affect my VMs (ie; will they still be bootable)?

proxmox have a tool to import disk:



#qm importdisk <vmid> your.qcow2 <targetproxmoxstorage>.



you'll need to create a vm first without disk, then the disk will be imported and attached to the vm.


Just create the vm with same options than ovirt, it should work out of the box

another tool:

#qm importovf <vmid> <manifest> <storage>



It's able to import ovf export (basically a standard zip with vm configuration + vm disk).

I don't known if ovirt is able to export vm in ovf format ?



With this, it's recreate the vm with the original configuration and import disks in 1 shot.


Maybe network reconfiguration inside the guest should be done, on linux with you use "ens..." interface instead ethX, and on windows too.

as the virtual pci slots of the virtual nics will be different.

 
proxmox have a tool to import disk:



#qm importdisk <vmid> your.qcow2 <targetproxmoxstorage>.



you'll need to create a vm first without disk, then the disk will be imported and attached to the vm.


Just create the vm with same options than ovirt, it should work out of the box

another tool:

#qm importovf <vmid> <manifest> <storage>



It's able to import ovf export (basically a standard zip with vm configuration + vm disk).

I don't known if ovirt is able to export vm in ovf format ?



With this, it's recreate the vm with the original configuration and import disks in 1 shot.


Maybe network reconfiguration inside the guest should be done, on linux with you use "ens..." interface instead ethX, and on windows too.

as the virtual pci slots of the virtual nics will be different.
Thank you for the reply.

Unfortunately I am not using oVirt, Only virt-manager on CentOS 7...hence the change to Proxmox lol. I just checked and there is no way to export the VM thru virt-manager. I'm sure I can export via virsh but need to look into it first. Do you know of any other way to export the VMs and their configs?
 

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