Migrating ArcGis from ESXi and retaining flexnet licenses

[jimorg123]

Just thought i'd post to save people the lengthy amusement of getting a successfull arcgis migration.

Step 1 - Use the awesome esxi migration tool to import the vm BE SURE TO RETAIN THE MAC OF THE ESXI nic
Step 2 - Copy the machine UUID to SMIBIOS UUID
Step 3 - install drivers on machine and change the nic to virt io, make disks virtio scsi
Step 4 - the fix that got it working
get the genid and genidx from vsphere > edit settings > advanced > edit config
e.g.
genidx= -2217834359527632614 = E138AB668DB3111A
genid = -7744011957178236574 = 9487BE278C038162
convert to 2's complement signed hex
genidx= E138AB668DB3111A
genid = 9487BE278C038162

then make UUID
last 8 of genid hex = 8C038162
second group of 4 genid hex = be27
first group of 4 genid hex = 9487
last 2 digits of genidx hex then last but 2 of genidx hex = 1a11
split first 12 of genidx hex into 2 bytes and list in reverse = B38D66AB38E1
making a uuid 8C038162-be27-9487-1a11-B38D66AB38E1
then set rge vmgenid of the vm with
qm set {vmid} -vmgenid 8C038162-be27-9487-1a11-B38D66AB38E1

run the machine and the licensing works as it did on esxi, panic over and users will be unaware of migration

Hope this helps someone having licensing issues with arc (or prob spiceworks or anything using flexnet), also if there is an easier way to generate the vmgenid uuid from the esx signed ints i would love to know as it was an interesting puzzle for me.

 

[Marco De Cesare]

Hi all,

thanks for sharing your detailed steps...really helpful! I’m trying to migrate a VM running ArcGIS License Manager from VMware ESXi to Proxmox, but I’m running into licensing issues and would appreciate any guidance. Here’s what I’ve done so far:

VM setup on Proxmox:

• OS already had VirtIO drivers and qemu-ga installed on the original VM; VMware Tools are still installed.
• Imported the VM into Proxmox and in the GUI:
  
  • General tab: selected storage, set default bridge to vmbr0
  • Advanced tab: changed SCSI Controller to VirtIO SCSI (single), checked “Prepare for VirtIO-SCSI”
  • Set NIC model to VirtIO (paravirtualized), MAC address kept the same as the original VM, configured default bridge with VLAN tag
    
• Executed in shell:
  
  "qm set 487 -vmgenid F3B55C59-7B3A-4365-8F4B-765A59E0C7D9"
  
  having these VMware values:
  
  - vm.genidX: -2753985972739355761
  - vm.genid: 4856423266316016729
  
  
  
• Enabled QEMU Agent in Options.
• Hardware adjustments:
  
  • Changed machine type to q35
  • Detached second disk (not the OS disk) and moved it to SCSI ID:2
• Powered on VM, removed VMware Tools, removed the hide original network card (VMware), set IP on the new one, put secondary disks online
• Power off VM, converted boot disk to SCSI

Problem: VM starts, but the ArcGIS license server does not work — it seems to fail the license check.

Since the MAC address has not changed, I suspect the issue might be related to VMGENID or SMBIOS UUID, but I’m not sure exactly what step I’m missing.

Has anyone successfully migrated an ArcGIS License Manager VM from ESXi to Proxmox while keeping the license working? Any hints on generating the correct VMGENID/UUID from the VMware genid values, or other steps I might be missing, would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks in advance for any advice!