Migration from VMware: LSI Logic SAS controller and "Prepare for VirtIO" option missing

[famariei]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently migrating a good amount of virtual machines from VMware ESXi to Proxmox VE.

The source VMs on VMware ESXi hosts are using the LSI Logic SAS storage controller. During the import process, I noticed that the "Prepare for VirtIO" checkbox is greyed out or not selectable.

My goal is to ensure the VM boots correctly with VirtIO drivers to avoid performance issues and bootloops.

Details:

• Proxmox Version: Virtual Environment 9.1.5
• Source: VMware ESXi hosts 5.5 and 6.7
• Guest OS: Windows Server 2012 and later / Ubuntu 16 and later / CentOS 3 and later / Debian 8 and later
• Storage Controller: LSI Logic SAS (I want to be able to use VirtIO)

Questions:

1. Why is the "Prepare for VirtIO" option unavailable for some VMs?
2. What is the best manual workflow to inject VirtIO drivers for LSI Logic SAS guests before or after the migration?
3. Should I change the controller type to VirtIO SCSI manually in the hardware settings before the first boot?

I have searched extensively for documentation regarding the migration from LSI to VirtIO on legacy ESXi versions, but haven't found a solution applicable to my specific setup.

Attached is a VMDK exported from an Ubuntu Server 20.04 instance. I have already verified that the kernel supports VirtIO drivers (specifically, they are present in the initramfs/temporary file system).

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Xavier Droniou]

for most VM , better to prepare virtio prior to migrate , windows 2012 need a old virtio win (01.173), mount iso on vmware side , use setup , install drivers and qemu agent (mandatory), specificaly with 2k12 you will have to use cli pnputil -a like

pnputil -i -a D:\vioscsi\2k12R2\amd64\vioscsi.inf
pnputil -i -a D:\viostor\2k12R2\amd64\viostor.inf
pnputil -i -a D:\NetKVM\2k12R2\amd64\netkvm.inf
pnputil -i -a D:\Balloon\2k12R2\amd64\balloon.inf

restart vm to precheck before migration (better but not mandatory)

After migration add a single 1GB disk using virtio, still with vm off
you will be able to scan on windows and discover it (it's same process you use to change to scsci controler on vmware with guestos windows)
system disk still in sata
change network interface to virtio
start vm
disable vmtools
look at device manager you shall see new scsi controler and new 1GB disk also
stop vm
remove 1GB disk that will be useless
change scsi controler to virtio single scsi
move existing disk to virtio (activate writeback for cache , important for windows performance)
restart vm, check your application
remove vmtools
clean orphan devices on device manager


for linux, depending of your kernel you will find help on doc to add virtio* on initramfs, same here also install qemu-agent depending of your system and package command to exec, you may also need to disable selinux during migration and after everything is fine reenable it, take care of fstab to use UUID and not /dev/sdXX, after migration rename network interface to get config files working and get network access