Migration problems for ESXi to Proxmox

A

alevene

New Member
Apr 29, 2010
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I've done a migration this weekend that doesn't work and am looking of ideas about what I missed.

I used FastSCP to copy the very large ...-flat.vmdk file to the Proxmox image folder where I had created a slightly larger .raw file.

I copied the smaller companion .vmdk file to my PC where I used the VMware tools to create a small .qcow2 file which I copied to the same Proxmox folder. I now had three files in the Promox folder, one original and two VMware files.

I moved the original .raw file from that folder and attempted to start the original VMware image (two files) without success. Ideas?

The instructions aren't clear about what specific files to move, change and delete. Clarification using examples would be nice.

I did find that WinSCP is useless at copying large files, as it timed out repeatedly. FastSCP worked without incident.
 
alevene said:
I've done a migration this weekend that doesn't work and am looking of ideas about what I missed.

I used FastSCP to copy the very large ...-flat.vmdk file to the Proxmox image folder where I had created a slightly larger .raw file.

I copied the smaller companion .vmdk file to my PC where I used the VMware tools to create a small .qcow2 file which I copied to the same Proxmox folder. I now had three files in the Promox folder, one original and two VMware files.

I moved the original .raw file from that folder and attempted to start the original VMware image (two files) without success. Ideas?

The instructions aren't clear about what specific files to move, change and delete. Clarification using examples would be nice.

I did find that WinSCP is useless at copying large files, as it timed out repeatedly. FastSCP worked without incident.
Click to expand...
Hi,
please post the content of the config-file (/etc/quemu-server/VMID.conf)
and the files in the image-dir:
Code: 
cd /var/lib/vz/images/VMID
file *
about scp - i don't know ESXi, but with vspere you can scp the file directly from the proxmoxhost( cd /var/lib/vz/images/VMID; scp esx1_ip:/vmfs/volumes/path/id/flatfiel.vmdk .)

Udo
 
Last edited:
Here's the update... I've noticed that when I review the hardware in each folder I find that under Unused disk images the vmdk files are listed. Only .raw files appear in the recognized hard disks section.

I used VMware WORKSTATION version of vmware-vdiskmanager. I could not find a server version of this file. When used against the small Linux .vmdk file it produced a larger file which I copied to the Proxmox folder, 102. The second .vmdk from the Windows server would not convert as the .vmdk file wasn't found! I ran it against other VMware virtualized server .vmdk files. None would convert, only the original SuSe version.

Here's the date you requested -

netcon3:~# cd /var/lib/vz/images/102
netcon3:/var/lib/vz/images/102# file *
suse111-flat.vmdk: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x82, starthead 1, startsector 63, 4208967 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x83, active, starthead 0, startsector 4209030, 41945715 sectors; partition 3: ID=0x83, starthead 254, startsector 46154745, 530530560 sectors
suse111-pve.qcow2: Qemu Image, Format: Qcow , Version: 2
vm-102-disk-1.raw: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x82, starthead 1, startsector 63, 4208967 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x83, active, starthead 0, startsector 4209030, 41945715 sectors; partition 3: ID=0x83, starthead 254, startsector 46154745, 582982785 sectors
netcon3:/var/lib/vz/images/102#

and

name: SuSe111
ide2: cdrom,media=cdrom
vlan0: rtl8139=E6:7F:FC:19:E6:FC
bootdisk: ide0
ostype: l26
memory: 1500
sockets: 1
onboot: 0
cores: 2

This is the 101 information, of which I cannot create the updated .vmdk file -

name: Win2003SBS
ide2: cdrom,media=cdrom
vlan0: rtl8139=A2:FF:3D:DC:AF:9F
bootdisk: ide0
ostype: w2k3
ide0: local:101/vm-101-disk-1.raw
memory: 3000
sockets: 1
onboot: 0
cores: 2
boot: cd
freeze: 0
cpuunits: 1000
acpi: 1
kvm: 1
View attachment 238
 
alevene said:
Here's the update... I've noticed that when I review the hardware in each folder I find that under Unused disk images the vmdk files are listed. Only .raw files appear in the recognized hard disks section.

I used VMware WORKSTATION version of vmware-vdiskmanager. I could not find a server version of this file. When used against the small Linux .vmdk file it produced a larger file which I copied to the Proxmox folder, 102. The second .vmdk from the Windows server would not convert as the .vmdk file wasn't found! I ran it against other VMware virtualized server .vmdk files. None would convert, only the original SuSe version.

Here's the date you requested -

netcon3:~# cd /var/lib/vz/images/102
netcon3:/var/lib/vz/images/102# file *
suse111-flat.vmdk: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x82, starthead 1, startsector 63, 4208967 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x83, active, starthead 0, startsector 4209030, 41945715 sectors; partition 3: ID=0x83, starthead 254, startsector 46154745, 530530560 sectors
suse111-pve.qcow2: Qemu Image, Format: Qcow , Version: 2
vm-102-disk-1.raw: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x82, starthead 1, startsector 63, 4208967 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x83, active, starthead 0, startsector 4209030, 41945715 sectors; partition 3: ID=0x83, starthead 254, startsector 46154745, 582982785 sectors
netcon3:/var/lib/vz/images/102#

and

name: SuSe111
ide2: cdrom,media=cdrom
vlan0: rtl8139=E6:7F:FC:19:E6:FC
bootdisk: ide0
ostype: l26
memory: 1500
sockets: 1
onboot: 0
cores: 2

This is the 101 information, of which I cannot create the updated .vmdk file -

name: Win2003SBS
ide2: cdrom,media=cdrom
vlan0: rtl8139=A2:FF:3D:DC:AF:9F
bootdisk: ide0
ostype: w2k3
ide0: local:101/vm-101-disk-1.raw
memory: 3000
sockets: 1
onboot: 0
cores: 2
boot: cd
freeze: 0
cpuunits: 1000
acpi: 1
kvm: 1
View attachment 238
Click to expand...
Hi,
your Suse VM (101) doesn't have a connected harddisk (file).
You can do it at the web-gui, or directly in the conf-file. Easier is the use of the web-gui.
Select VM 101 -> Hardware -> Add a Harddisk -> Use an existing virtual disk -> select the copied vmdk-file (or the raw, i think it's the same content, or not?) and as bus ide 0:0 -> add
Control options, that the harddisk is your boot-device (or second, with empty cdrom).
Power on 101, and normaly it should start.
If the linux break the boot with "root device not found" you can try scsi as bus-type (delete harddisk, and add unused file).

Udo
 
Udo:

Thanks for the simple fix. I didn't notice the add hardware icon. I found that the Linux SCP did not complete resulting in an incomplete copy so I'm doing it again overnight.

Can you explain -
1 How the converted .qcow2 fits in this scenario?
2 Is the WORKSTATION version of vmware-vdiskmanager suitable to covert the .vmdk to qcow2 format and then copied to the 10x folder where the original .vmdk OS is copied to?
3 It's shame that Proxmox isn't able to dynamically convert the small .vmdk (not the flat) file to qcow2 format so you just copy the two files to Proxmox, attach them and they come to life.

Thanks,
 
alevene said:
Udo:

Thanks for the simple fix. I didn't notice the add hardware icon. I found that the Linux SCP did not complete resulting in an incomplete copy so I'm doing it again overnight.

Can you explain -
1 How the converted .qcow2 fits in this scenario?
2 Is the WORKSTATION version of vmware-vdiskmanager suitable to covert the .vmdk to qcow2 format and then copied to the 10x folder where the original .vmdk OS is copied to?
3 It's shame that Proxmox isn't able to dynamically convert the small .vmdk (not the flat) file to qcow2 format so you just copy the two files to Proxmox, attach them and they come to life.

Thanks,
Click to expand...
Hi,
to 1.
if you have allready a raw-file (the flat-file from vmware) you don't need a conversion to qcow2. You can convert raw to qcow2, but you get "only" a smaler file with a little bit performance drop. Harddisk are (relativ) cheap - so i prefer raw-format.

to 2.
sorry, I don't know the vmware-vdiskmanager - but qemu-img on the proxmoxhost can do some conversions.

to 3.
proxmox can handle vmdk-files - have you tried that? But the small vmdk-file is only a reference to the flatfile (ok, not really true - it's shows snapshots and so on).
I have no experience with vmdk and proxmox, because I use raw or qcow2. If i want to convert a machine back to vmware, i need only the raw-file. But till now, i convert only VMs from vmware to proxmox not vice versa!

Udo
 
I did the Linux conversion overnight. I just copied the two vmdk files to the 101 folder and registered them in the Proxmox browser window and it came to life instantly. All I need to do is rebuild the graphical server and it will be done. I'll try the Windows 2003 overnight tonight and let you know.

I wish the conversion instructions would have said, just copy/paste/register and you're done. It would have saved a week. Now if you could only detail if it's possible (I don't think so) to cp to a eSATA or USB drive from VMware and then to the Proxmox server, it would speed up the transfer.

At the end of this I'll write a new post detailing how its done, step by step to help others.

Thanks again.
 
alevene said:
... Now if you could only detail if it's possible (I don't think so) to cp to a eSATA or USB drive from VMware and then to the Proxmox server, it would speed up the transfer.
...
Click to expand...
Hi,
like wrote before - from esx server (vsphere) you can copy (with scp) directly from the proxmox-host the vmdk-files. I think it's the same with ESXi, but i don't know this product.

Udo
 
this appears quite straight forward, will be looking forward to testing Proxmox

As for getting files from your VMWare box...I did this yesterday using a Ubuntu Live CD (10.04 Lucid). The Server in question was a VMWare ESXi 3.5 box.

Boot from Ubuntu CD, enable multiverse? repositories under Software Sources
apt-get install vmfs-tools
then use vmfs-fuse to mount your VMWare datastore partition in read only and copy VMs to an external hard drive..

I hope / suspect? Proxmox will allow USB drive support (sorry have not looked into it much yet)

Regards
Ryan
 
you just want to attach the usb drives to the host to copy the VM disks? yes, no problem.
 
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