New Import Wizard Available for Migrating VMware ESXi Based Virtual Machines

[jad238]

Hi Daniel,

I’ve attached the file as requested. You are also correct in that the VMFS disks are actual disks on the ESXi 8.x host. They are not mounted remote volumes/storage. The actual (local) disks are SSD.

 

[dherzig]

Hi jad238,

thanks for the manifest file.

I'm not sure if this is the reason for the import troubles -- but there's one entry where there's not datastore recognized for a VM:

      "vCLS-4c4c4544-0042-5310-8030-b1c04f5a3233": {
        "config": {
          "datastore": "",
          "path": "/var/run/crx/infra/vCLS-4c4c4544-0042-5310-8030-b1c04f5a3233/vCLS-4c4c4544-0042-5310-8030-b1c04f5a3233.vmx",
          "checksum": "b2cee0014fab6e951cd89d30c1e8a9bf8718f6e3f5d9903a7cada39fa8571fa6"
        },
        "disks": [],
        "power": "poweredOn"
      },

Could you check, how the actual storage config for this VM looks like on the ESXI-side -- is it on the same datastore as the remaining ones?

Best regards,
Daniel

 

[jad238]

Hi Daniel,

vCLS-4c4c4544-0042-5310-8030-b1c04f5a3233 is a vSphere cluster VM which is required to maintain the health of vSphere cluster services (vCLS).

Some general context, vCLS configures a quorum on these VMs on the cluster. A vSphere Cluster Service VM is deployed from an OVA with a minimal installed profile of PhotonOS. vSphere Cluster Service manages the resources, power state and availability of these VMs. vSphere Cluster Service VMs are required for maintaining the health and availability of vSphere Cluster Service. Any impact on the power state or resources of these VMs might degrade the health of the vSphere Cluster Service and cause vSphere DRS to cease operation for the cluster.

It's worth noting that a vCLS VM exists on the ESXi 7.x host which work perfectly fine to migrate systems. I’ve attached screenshots for reference. The ESXi 7.x host (kelvin) has a VM on the same datastore as the vCLS VM and the import configuration dialogue opens without issue. To my knowledge the vCLS VMs are the same across a vSphere cluster and are not ESXi version specific, but I will verify if there are any differences between versions.

As a test I moved a VM to another datastore which does not have a vCLS VM and attempted the migration, with the same error result. I’m not sure this is specific to the datastore on which the vCLS resides.

 

[dherzig]

Hi jad238,

Thanks for the esxi7-screenshots.

It appears as if on ESXI-7 the .vmx file of the vCLS machine resides on a datastore, while on the ESXI-8 host it resides somewhere on the host's root filesystem under /var/run/crx, which is not related to any datastore. This might cause some confusion for the importer.

 

[jad238]

Hi Daniel,

Let me investigate that more fully.

 

[jad238]

Hi Daniel,

I investigated the vCLS VM in question more fully and found an issue with it. Because this host is no longer using shared disk (as we are transitioning to a different storage platform) it was possible for me to disable DRS and HA, and enable retreat mode temporarily with no impact to the environment. This removed the vCLS VMs in this cluster (again not a big deal in this instance). I then disabled retreat mode (change the checkbox back to system managed), after which new vCLS VMs were created. The details regarding retreat mode can be found here.

After making this change and allowing the new vCLS VMs to come back online (I waited about 5 minutes to be safe) I attempted another migration to Proxmox. This time the dialogue box opened and the import was successful.

I’m going to do some additional testing to verify fully. Since the vCLS VMs are specific to vCenter and won’t work on other platforms, maybe something can be done in the Proxmox migration tool to exclude/ignore those VMs.

 

[dherzig]

Hi jad238,

hacky, not checked for safety&effectivity, but if you're willing to risk&test, you could try modding "/usr/libexec/pve-esxi-import-tools/listvms.py":

--- #<buffer listvms.py<rust>>
+++ #<buffer listvms.py<libexec>>
@@ -265,6 +265,12 @@
     with connect_to_esxi_host(connection_args) as connection:
         data = {}
         for vm in list_vms(connection):
+            # skip vms with empty datastore_name
+            datastore_name, relative_vmx_path = parse_file_path(
+                vm.config.files.vmPathName
+            )
+            if not datastore_name:
+                continue
             try:
                 fetch_and_update_vm_data(vm, data)
             except Exception as err:

This should exclude all VMs with an empty datastore string (as are the vCLS machines) from the manifest.json file and not let these interfere with the esxi storage activation anymore.

If you want to get rid of these changes again, you can just 'apt reinstall pve-esxi-import-tools'.

 

[amjid]

Hi All,

Import wizard has improved alot, not just storage but you can now configure VMs, It works without any issue.
Here is step by step tutorial for those who are still struggling, Tutorial on VM Import Wizard Proxmox

 

[jad238]

Hi Daniel,

I’m still seeing some unusual behavior, specifically on other Proxmox Nodes in the Proxmox cluster. Let me do some investigation and come back with more definitive information.

 

[dherzig]

Hi jad238,

as you're mentioning other nodes of the cluster -- the mentioned changes would need to be done on any of the PVE-hosts, as the listvms.py code (and correspondingly the manifest.json) is local to each node.

 

[jad238]

Hi Daniel,

I was able to do more in depth testing and the changes to listvms.py seems to work. I did reverse those changes as this is an adhoc test, and we don’t want to implement changes which are not fully tested/validated and implemented in an official patch/update from the vendor.

For other who may read this. Another way this can be addressed as a “workaround” is to enable retreat mode in the vSphere cluster. Keep in mind doing this will have implications to the vSphere cluster, specifically around things like HA, DRS, etc. I would only suggest doing this through proper change processes.

The best approach is to have this “fix” added to a future release/patch of Proxmox.

I greatly appreciate your help in tracking this down with us.

 

[dherzig]

Hi jad238,

happy to help. Just FYI, the vCLS issues should be fixed with today's 8.4 release.