Migrating Proxmox VM from 6.4-15 to 8.2.2

[larray]

I have a (very) legacy Proxmox 6.4-15 install on failing hardware (the the storage is solid, the VMs are not corrupt - there is a glitch that now requires keyboard and video to be attached if power is lost).

Original System:
CPU(s): 4 x Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz (1 Socket)
Kernel Version: Linux 5.4.203-1-pve #1 SMP PVE 5.4.203-1 (Fri, 26 Aug 2022 14:43:35 +0200)
PVE Manager Version: pve-manager/6.4-15/af7986e6

New System:
CPU(s): 4 x Intel(R) N97 (1 Socket)
Kernel Version: Linux 6.8.4-2-pve (2024-04-10T17:36Z)
Boot Mode: EFI
Manager Version: pve-manager/8.2.2/9355359cd7afbae4

VM:
HASS-OS - (HomeAssistant)

I really wanted to avoid:

• Upgrade 6.4 to 7.x to 8.2 - because if it breaks, it might be harder to get the VM back up and running on the old hardware
• Install 7.x on the new hardware to try to do some form of conversion (because I cannot see where there is any voodoo to convert machines that are restored from backup) and I would have to disable SecureBoot - and I kind of like now that I've figured out how to do EFI keeping it as it should be.

Looking through some forum articles I was looking for ways to emulate an older Proxmox or upgrade the VM. I have successfully booted once with removing the PCI setting in advanced CPU configuration. On reboot it seized and never came back.

Most of what I've read is just "Backup on old" and "Restore on new" - I'm clearly missing something

Suggestions?

 

[BobhWasatch]

Why do you think backing up and restoring would not work? Did you try it? It isn't clear from your post what you have done.

 

[larray]

Apologies –
I have done exactly that.

I’ve tried simply copying it to the new instance and booting it, and it never completes.

I’ve tried multiple things. I’ve tried playing with the Linux level for the VM, I’ve tried playing with CPU settings for the VM.

The only success I’ve had is a single boot as noted above where I set -PCI flag. When I tried to reboot the VM, it seized pretty badly and would not allow for reboot, shut down, halt. I eventually had to set the halt with override to finally get it to terminate.

So, I wanted to see if my expectation of “back up, copy, boot“ was realistic given I was jumping two major versions.

 

[larray]

Adding notes for future travelers...

This is the kind of error I encounter - this is where the OS seizes on boot:


and:



I don't have a good foundation on troubleshooting QEMU hypervisors. I have decent foundational knowledge of VMWare and Hyper-V - so I started with a few articles on the forum. One of them led to setting the PCI setting (- negative to remove?) which had mixed results.

At the core - there either seemed to be a hardware / hypervisor virtualization of CPU and mainboard layout issue and changes to BIOS and Machine settings had little effect, or ??? This is where I was stuck.

I'm happy to report that after a few resets back to the backup, I've gotten through 3 boot, shutdown, boot again cycles by removing:
The USB controller.
The Serial controller.
USB wasn't mapped to the right/any device - I can't move the physical device to this instance until I decommission the other box.. which I can't do until I can get this one to reliably work. I hoped this would simply be a "blank" USB0 "port". I strongly suspect this is the culprit as I have now removed the PCI CPU configuration and am still able to reboot.

I will do some more testing and report back fail/success.

 

[larray]

Conversion worked successfully - it really almost was "Backup" and "Restore" - but also included the steps to remove the USB and Serial ports. Ultimately I think it was the Serial port - I did add the USB back and map it the same way and had successful boots. I lost the will to mess with it further and assess why the serial port controller would have freaked it out... ultimately I assume it is similar to physical mobo - if peripherals are attached and non-essential cards are inserted in PCI, ISA, etc slots - pull them out and "re-insert" one at a time.

One other item of note - the conversion (or perhaps rip/replace) of the USB port - while still mapped through - caused HomeAssistant to see the USB Zigbee/Z-Wave "differently" and I ended up having to re-scan the hardware and Zigbee became a Matter controller. It all works - I don't have to re-add the devices - so I'm pretty happy.