Migrate VMs between standalone PVE hosts

[Alessandro 123]

Which is the best method (I can poweroff the VM) to migrate a VM from 2 standalone (not in a cluster) PVE hosts ?
Both hosts are on the same network.

There is also a way to livemigrate ?

 

[oguz]

hi,

you could just make a backup and restore the archive on the other node.

There is also a way to livemigrate ?

not unless they're clustered.

 

[Alessandro 123]

you could just make a backup and restore the archive on the other node.

Is possible to do this in one step ? Something like

newhost$ vmbackup oldhost 111 | vmrestore

Just to avoid to backup hundreds of GB locally and the restore hundreds of GB to the new host (a lot of hours needed as this is a 2 step operation via network)

 

[oguz]

Is possible to do this in one step ?

hmm, yes. there are a couple possibilities.

for example via ssh:

vzdump 111 --stdout | ssh root@newhost -- qm restore - 123

where 111 is the old VMID and 123 the new one that will be restored on the host.
though be aware that this is not very robust, as you'll have to start over the whole backup if it's terminated for some reason (it can also take a while to complete).
alternatively you can look into "sshfs" which would allow you to mount a directory from the 2nd host on your 1st one.

another option is using a network storage (like NFS,SMB etc). if you mount the share on both hosts, you could just make a backup on the first one and save to the NFS share, then restore it from the share on the 2nd host.

 

[Alessandro 123]

Thank you.

Can I do the same PULLING the backup from a remote server instead of pushing it ?

 

[oguz]

Can I do the same PULLING the backup from a remote server instead of pushing it ?

sure, if you stored your backup on a network share, then you can just pull it from the 2nd server and restore

 

[Alessandro 123]

No shared storage.

 

[oguz]

No shared storage.

in that case you can utilize sshfs as mentioned, just mount the backup directory from the 1st host to the 2nd

 

[Alessandro 123]

No, wait, I need a direct export , not a mount to use when backupping and restoring. It's better, in my environment, risk to have to restart everything from scratch than the downtime needed to backup and then restore in 2 steps.

 

[oguz]

No, wait, I need a direct export , not a mount to use when backupping and restoring. It's better, in my environment, risk to have to restart everything from scratch than the downtime needed to backup and then restore in 2 steps.

you can try like this:

ssh root@oldhost -- vzdump 111 | qmrestore - 123