New Import Wizard Available for Migrating VMware ESXi Based Virtual Machines

Yes.
I will give some more details later.
Perhaps this is happes because it's a lab env, and the ESXi is installed as regular PVE VM.
I am planning to install ESXi on real hardware and will keep you posted.
Thanks
I have this same error.

restore-scsi9: stream-job finished
restore-drive jobs finished successfully, removing all tracking block devices
An error occurred during live-restore: VM 117 qmp command 'blockdev-del' failed - Node 'drive-scsi0-restore' is busy: node is used as backing hd of '#block3269'

TASK ERROR: live-restore failed

retried with the machine powered off and got.

transferred 12.0 GiB of 48.0 GiB (25.02%)
transferred 12.5 GiB of 48.0 GiB (26.03%)
qemu-img: error while reading at byte 13690205184: Function not implemented
TASK ERROR: unable to create VM 117 - cannot import from 'esxi:ha-datacenter/SDDm2/VcenterNCS/VcenterNCS.vmdk' - copy failed: command '/usr/bin/qemu-img convert -p -n -t none -f vmdk -O raw /run/pve/import/esxi/esxi/mnt/ha-datacenter/SDDm2/VcenterNCS/VcenterNCS.vmdk zeroinit:/dev/zvol/HP1ZFS/vm-117-disk-0' failed: exit code 1
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Gilberto Ferreira
While I think this is a great add, correct me if wrong, it still doesn't bring a WEB GUI method for importing OVA/OVF files correct?

That is one of the bigger shortfalls I see with proxmox for folks coming from the ESXi world.
 
I have this same error.

restore-scsi9: stream-job finished
restore-drive jobs finished successfully, removing all tracking block devices
An error occurred during live-restore: VM 117 qmp command 'blockdev-del' failed - Node 'drive-scsi0-restore' is busy: node is used as backing hd of '#block3269'

TASK ERROR: live-restore failed

retried with the machine powered off and got.

transferred 12.0 GiB of 48.0 GiB (25.02%)
transferred 12.5 GiB of 48.0 GiB (26.03%)
qemu-img: error while reading at byte 13690205184: Function not implemented
TASK ERROR: unable to create VM 117 - cannot import from 'esxi:ha-datacenter/SDDm2/VcenterNCS/VcenterNCS.vmdk' - copy failed: command '/usr/bin/qemu-img convert -p -n -t none -f vmdk -O raw /run/pve/import/esxi/esxi/mnt/ha-datacenter/SDDm2/VcenterNCS/VcenterNCS.vmdk zeroinit:/dev/zvol/HP1ZFS/vm-117-disk-0' failed: exit code 1
Same error for me.

<snip>
transferred 9.0 GiB of 64.0 GiB (14.01%)
qemu-img: error while reading at byte 10032773120: Function not implemented
TASK ERROR: unable to create VM 202 - cannot import from 'Zadeo-ESXi:ha-datacenter/sas3T/ZadeoMGMT/ZadeoMGMT.vmdk' - copy failed: command '/usr/bin/qemu-img convert -p -n -f vmdk -O qcow2 /run/pve/import/esxi/Zadeo-ESXi/mnt/ha-datacenter/sas3T/ZadeoMGMT/ZadeoMGMT.vmdk zeroinit:/mnt/pve/NFS/images/202/vm-202-disk-0.qcow2' failed: exit code 1

Update: This is towards
VMWare ESX 6.7.0 Update 3 (Build 16075168) vSphere 6 Enterprise Plus
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Gilberto Ferreira
Same error for me.

<snip>
transferred 9.0 GiB of 64.0 GiB (14.01%)
qemu-img: error while reading at byte 10032773120: Function not implemented
TASK ERROR: unable to create VM 202 - cannot import from 'Zadeo-ESXi:ha-datacenter/sas3T/ZadeoMGMT/ZadeoMGMT.vmdk' - copy failed: command '/usr/bin/qemu-img convert -p -n -f vmdk -O qcow2 /run/pve/import/esxi/Zadeo-ESXi/mnt/ha-datacenter/sas3T/ZadeoMGMT/ZadeoMGMT.vmdk zeroinit:/mnt/pve/NFS/images/202/vm-202-disk-0.qcow2' failed: exit code 1

Update: This is towards
VMWare ESX 6.7.0 Update 3 (Build 16075168) vSphere 6 Enterprise Plus
Well... It's a tech-preview.
Expected bugs
Hope this all fixed in next release.
 
While I think this is a great add, correct me if wrong, it still doesn't bring a WEB GUI method for importing OVA/OVF files correct?

That is one of the bigger shortfalls I see with proxmox for folks coming from the ESXi world.
"We plan to integrate our OVF/OVA import tools into this new stack in the future. Currently, integrating additional import sources is not on our roadmap, but will be re-evaluated periodically"
 
Same error for me.

<snip>
transferred 9.0 GiB of 64.0 GiB (14.01%)
qemu-img: error while reading at byte 10032773120: Function not implemented
TASK ERROR: unable to create VM 202 - cannot import from 'Zadeo-ESXi:ha-datacenter/sas3T/ZadeoMGMT/ZadeoMGMT.vmdk' - copy failed: command '/usr/bin/qemu-img convert -p -n -f vmdk -O qcow2 /run/pve/import/esxi/Zadeo-ESXi/mnt/ha-datacenter/sas3T/ZadeoMGMT/ZadeoMGMT.vmdk zeroinit:/mnt/pve/NFS/images/202/vm-202-disk-0.qcow2' failed: exit code 1

Update: This is towards
VMWare ESX 6.7.0 Update 3 (Build 16075168) vSphere 6 Enterprise Plus
This is looking like rate limiting. sadly I have like 70 machines on this node. I wonder if that makes a difference.
 
More retries when hitting the rate limit?

Mar 27 14:51:12 HPG9208 esxi-folder-fus[1578590]: HPG9208 esxi-folder-fuse[1578590]: rate limited, retrying (1 of 5)...
Mar 27 14:51:22 HPG9208 esxi-folder-fus[1578590]: HPG9208 esxi-folder-fuse[1578590]: rate limited, retrying (2 of 5)...
Mar 27 14:51:32 HPG9208 esxi-folder-fus[1578590]: HPG9208 esxi-folder-fuse[1578590]: rate limited, retrying (3 of 5)...
Mar 27 14:51:42 HPG9208 esxi-folder-fus[1578590]: HPG9208 esxi-folder-fuse[1578590]: rate limited, retrying (4 of 5)...
Mar 27 14:51:52 HPG9208 esxi-folder-fus[1578590]: HPG9208 esxi-folder-fuse[1578590]: rate limited => Response { status: 503, version: HTTP/1.1, headers: {"date": "Wed, 27 Mar 2024 19:54:09 GMT", "connection": "close", "content-security-policy": "block-all-mixed-content", "content-type": "text/plain; charset=utf-8", "strict-transport-security": "max-age=31536000", "x-content-type-options": "nosniff", "x-frame-options": "DENY", "x-xss-protection": "1", "content-length": "0"}, body: Body(Empty) }
Mar 27 14:51:52 HPG9208 esxi-folder-fus[1578590]: HPG9208 esxi-folder-fuse[1578590]: error handling request: cached read failed: rate limited
 
This is looking like rate limiting. sadly I have like 70 machines on this node. I wonder if that makes a difference.
I get this error sometimes now also.


(vim.fault.HostConnectFault) { dynamicType = <unset>, dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [], msg = '503 Service Unavailable', faultCause = <unset>, faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) []} (500)
 
Ok, I could not get authentication to work on directly to ESXi with the free license present. While I could authenticate (no errors) with an Enterprise+ key present on the host it would not read any of the VMs. I deployed VCSA and created a Datacenter>Cluster and changed the PVE mapping to vCenter and it all worked. Tested on ESXi 7.0.3, 20328353, 7.0U3d-19482537 and 6.7.0u3b-15160138. Currently am doing a ESXi->PVE migration through vCenter on 6 testing VMs.

I really like how PVE knows that VMware SCSI has to be converted to SATA :)
 
Ok, I could not get authentication to work on directly to ESXi with the free license present. While I could authenticate (no errors) with an Enterprise+ key present on the host it would not read any of the VMs. I deployed VCSA and created a Datacenter>Cluster and changed the PVE mapping to vCenter and it all worked. Tested on ESXi 7.0.3, 20328353, 7.0U3d-19482537 and 6.7.0u3b-15160138. Currently am doing a ESXi->PVE migration through vCenter on 6 testing VMs.

I really like how PVE knows that VMware SCSI has to be converted to SATA :)
Connecting to vsphere gets me constant rate limit errors in the log.
( I do have 3 v7 vcenters linked. )

Mar 27 15:56:19 PVIntel systemd[1]: run-pve-import-esxi-vspherencs-mnt.mount: Deactivated successfully.
Mar 27 15:57:05 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2114953]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2114953]: rate limited, retrying (1 of 5)...
Mar 27 15:57:15 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2114953]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2114953]: rate limited, retrying (2 of 5)...
Mar 27 15:57:25 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2114953]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2114953]: rate limited, retrying (3 of 5)...
Mar 27 15:57:35 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2114953]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2114953]: rate limited, retrying (4 of 5)...
Mar 27 15:57:45 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2114953]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2114953]: rate limited => Response { status: 503, version: HTTP/1.1, headers: {"date": "Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:00:02 GMT", "set-cookie": "vmware_soap_session=\"9f051beaf60e715f6fe55684cad0f6a3c60bc6a7\"; Path=/; HttpOnly; Secure;", "content-security-policy": "block-all-mixed-content", "content-type": "text/plain; charset=utf-8", "strict-transport-security": "max-age=31536000", "x-content-type-options": "nosniff", "x-frame-options": "DENY", "x-xss-protection": "1", "content-length": "0", "x-envoy-upstream-service-time": "58", "server": "envoy"}, body: Body(Empty) }
Mar 27 15:57:45 PVIntel systemd[1]: pve-esxi-fuse-vspherencs.scope: Deactivated successfully.
Mar 27 15:57:45 PVIntel pvestatd[1734]: failed to spawn fuse mount, process exited with status 256
Mar 27 15:57:46 PVIntel pvestatd[1734]: status update time (90.986 seconds)
Mar 27 15:57:46 PVIntel systemd[1]: Started pve-esxi-fuse-vspherencs.scope.
Mar 27 15:57:46 PVIntel systemd[1]: run-pve-import-esxi-vspherencs-mnt.mount: Deactivated successfully.
Mar 27 15:58:08 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2115266]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2115266]: rate limited, retrying (1 of 5)...
Mar 27 15:58:18 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2115266]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2115266]: rate limited, retrying (2 of 5)...
Mar 27 15:58:28 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2115266]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2115266]: rate limited, retrying (3 of 5)...
Mar 27 15:58:38 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2115266]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2115266]: rate limited, retrying (4 of 5)...
Mar 27 15:58:48 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2115266]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2115266]: rate limited => Response { status: 503, version: HTTP/1.1, headers: {"date": "Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:01:05 GMT", "set-cookie": "vmware_soap_session=\"73ba1cfd7cfe413b95416e2fe2ddaf2cd569e199\"; Path=/; HttpOnly; Secure;", "content-security-policy": "block-all-mixed-content", "content-type": "text/plain; charset=utf-8", "strict-transport-security": "max-age=31536000", "x-content-type-options": "nosniff", "x-frame-options": "DENY", "x-xss-protection": "1", "content-length": "0", "x-envoy-upstream-service-time": "51", "server": "envoy"}, body: Body(Empty) }
Mar 27 15:58:48 PVIntel systemd[1]: pve-esxi-fuse-vspherencs.scope: Deactivated successfully.
Mar 27 15:58:48 PVIntel pvestatd[1734]: failed to spawn fuse mount, process exited with status 256
Mar 27 15:58:48 PVIntel pvestatd[1734]: status update time (62.642 seconds)
Mar 27 15:58:53 PVIntel systemd[1]: Started pve-esxi-fuse-vspherencs.scope.
Mar 27 15:58:53 PVIntel systemd[1]: run-pve-import-esxi-vspherencs-mnt.mount: Deactivated successfully.
Mar 27 15:58:58 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2115732]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2115732]: rate limited, retrying (1 of 5)...
Mar 27 15:59:09 PVIntel esxi-folder-fus[2115732]: PVIntel esxi-folder-fuse[2115732]: rate limited, retrying (2 of 5)...
 
Last edited:
Just tested from a trial esxi-box, worked like a charm.

But now:

Code:
Mar 27 22:03:19 pve1 pvedaemon[1498]: (vim.fault.HostConnectFault) {
                                         dynamicType = <unset>,
                                         dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
                                         msg = '503 Service Unavailable',
                                         faultCause = <unset>,
                                         faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) []
                                      }

Which seems to be ratelimiting as well.

After that, I got 'username or password incorrect', which I 'solved' be resetting the password on the esxi-side (to the same password) ...
 
Last edited:
Very good work.
This saves a lot of time when creating the VMs, only the copying is a little slower than my previous method via NFS.
If someone has an idea how to integrate the Virtio SCSI driver into Windows so that you don't have to rebuild the disk afterwards, then that's the game changer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: try and jsterr
Very good work.
This saves a lot of time when creating the VMs, only the copying is a little slower than my previous method via NFS.
If someone has an idea how to integrate the Virtio SCSI driver into Windows so that you don't have to rebuild the disk afterwards, then that's the game changer.
personnally, for my last migrations, I have simply install the drivers with virtio-win iso, when vm was still running on esx, and the vm was able to boot directly on virtio-scsi.
 
Very good work.
This saves a lot of time when creating the VMs, only the copying is a little slower than my previous method via NFS.
If someone has an idea how to integrate the Virtio SCSI driver into Windows so that you don't have to rebuild the disk afterwards, then that's the game changer.
You can use this as a basis. Issue is that Windows needs to boot once with the virtio-driver needed, and only after that, you can boot from Virtio-scsi. (As far as I know, at least: https://support.tuxis.nl/en/knowledgebase/article/convert-windows-boot-disk-from-virtio-to-scsi)
 
  • Like
Reactions: DirkTripleD
You can use this as a basis. Issue is that Windows needs to boot once with the virtio-driver needed, and only after that, you can boot from Virtio-scsi. (As far as I know, at least: https://support.tuxis.nl/en/knowledgebase/article/convert-windows-boot-disk-from-virtio-to-scsi)
That has been my approach in recent years ;)
personnally, for my last migrations, I have simply install the drivers with virtio-win iso, when vm was still running on esx, and the vm was able to boot directly on virtio-scsi.
Then tell me what trick you used to teach Windows to use the driver for booting. I have already set the bootable flag in the registry, but it is gone again after a reboot.
 

About

The Proxmox community has been around for many years and offers help and support for Proxmox VE, Proxmox Backup Server, and Proxmox Mail Gateway.
We think our community is one of the best thanks to people like you!

Get your subscription!

The Proxmox team works very hard to make sure you are running the best software and getting stable updates and security enhancements, as well as quick enterprise support. Tens of thousands of happy customers have a Proxmox subscription. Get yours easily in our online shop.

Buy now!