New Import Wizard Available for Migrating VMware ESXi Based Virtual Machines

[Falk R.]

I was able to mount the VirtIO ISO in Windows before the migration, and went into the following directories one at a time, right clicked on the .inf file and chose "install":

F:\viostor\w10\amd64
F:\vioscsi\w10\amd64
F:\Balloon\w10\amd64
F:\sriov\w10\amd64
F:\NetKVM\w10\amd64

Once I did that, I rebooted the VM to make sure I didn't hose anything. Then I shut it down and migrated it. I did get a warning during import about EFI, but I just ignored it and once the migration was complete, the Windows 10 VM booted perfectly. I will be trying a Windows Server 2022 VM today.

One caveat: I forgot to uninstall the VMware Tools before migrating and it wouldn't let me uninstall from the program menu in control panel, or from the mounted VMware tools CD. So I had to manually remove the folders and registry settings. Lesson learned.

The uninstaller don’t work correctly on VMTools 11.2 and 11.3. This is a normal behavior at VMware.

 

[Falk R.]

This is slow, if you boot live the machine is slow and larger machines will be very slow for a long time. Isn't it better to do like most backup software do?
1. Using API, do snapshot.
2. Get files from ESXi
3. Poweroff machine using API
4. Get last data
5. Poweron

This will make the machine quick while running in Vmware, and quick once booted on proxmox. No slow time that can take a loong time on larger machines.

When you would migrate extreme Fast (depend on Storage) with minimal Downtime, then use my Way, that I use since many Years. VMware storage Migration to a NFS share (mostly from PVE), mount the same Share at PVE. Build VM Configuration and attach VMDKs to the new VM. Shutdown at vSphere and at PVE power on. Then live migrate Disk to your final Datastore. More Information are in the official Proxmox Wiki.

 

[lawson]

I am hitting same issue as you and I have also updated the files as shown above as well as Config.HostAgent.vmacore.soap.maxSessionCount option (under Host -> Manage -> System -> Advanced Settings).

My esxi is version 6.7.0 Update 3 (Build 14320388)

I have a tried a few unsuccessful attempts to move a couple different vms.
They usually fail around same area:
transferred 15.2 GiB of 76.0 GiB (20.05%)
qemu-img: error while reading at byte 16609440256: Input/output error

Anyone have any suggestions to try?

A task operation succeeded now for me.

I restarted the esxi services and after several hours tried running import again and the operation succeeded.

I am running more imports now to see if they succeed or fail.

(UPDATE: After updating the ESXi config files and setting changes you should probably reboot the machine to take effect because after only restarting the services there were failed tasks until a long while later. Leads me to believe some settings didn't get fully accepted due to some delay. Better to reboot esxi. Imports appear to be working correctly now. )

 

[ajmorris74]

If toy have large VMFS iSCSI luns with multiple VMs that should work fine with the import wizarrd. How far do you get?

It tries to import for a LONG time then it deletes the VM it was making. I can get a screenshot.

 

[ajmorris74]

Stays on this screen for a LONG time.

 

[ajmorris74]

12 minutes later..
TASK ERROR: unable to create VM 108 - cannot import from 'ESX1-1:ha-datacenter/VMFS-2TB-2/Print/Print-000007.vmdk' - copy failed: command '/usr/bin/qemu-img convert -p -n -f vmdk -O raw /run/pve/import/esxi/ESX1-1/mnt/ha-datacenter/VMFS-2TB-2/Print/Print-000007.vmdk 'zeroinit:rbdroxPool01/vm-108-disk-0:conf=/etc/pve/ceph.conf:id=admin:keyring=/etc/pve/priv/ceph/ProxPool01.keyring'' failed: exit code 1

 

[esxiTOprox2024]

hello

my first post

just installed proxmox a few days ago and going to shutdown my esxi at some point
its bye bye vmware.

now i found this nice new tool to import my vms

great i used clonezilla but now this is way better!!!!


edit
regarding the post above
i am also stuck at 0 % for some while but in my case ist running now.
hope is a succes at the end.

 

[jlauro]

View attachment 65536
12 minutes later..
TASK ERROR: unable to create VM 108 - cannot import from 'ESX1-1:ha-datacenter/VMFS-2TB-2/Print/Print-000007.vmdk' - copy failed: command '/usr/bin/qemu-img convert -p -n -f vmdk -O raw /run/pve/import/esxi/ESX1-1/mnt/ha-datacenter/VMFS-2TB-2/Print/Print-000007.vmdk 'zeroinit:rbdroxPool01/vm-108-disk-0:conf=/etc/pve/ceph.conf:id=admin:keyring=/etc/pve/priv/ceph/ProxPool01.keyring'' failed: exit code 1

Sounds like it made over 5GB into the vm before it had a problem. What version of vsphere/esxi do you have?
One thing I noticed compared to my run, is it's not showing it finished creating the logical volume. Working output for mine starts with:
create full clone of drive (vm8:ha-datacenter/iSAN8R6V1/pm-ohq-api-2/pm-ohq-api-2.vmdk)
Logical volume "vm-102-disk-0" created.
transferred 0.0 B of 16.0 GiB (0.00%)
transferred 163.8 MiB of 16.0 GiB (1.00%)
transferred 327.7 MiB of 16.0 GiB (2.00%)
transferred 491.5 MiB of 16.0 GiB (3.00%)
...
Are you trying live migration or not? Either way, you need to power off the source VM. Even if you do live migration, I found you have to turn off the source before starting the migration, and after the logical volume(s) are created it powers on the vm in proxmox and it will boot.

Based on the filename, it looks like there is snapshots on the vm. I think that should work, but, I suggest deleting and consolidating all snapshots first before trying the operation with snapshots. If you need to keep those snapshots for now, you could clone the vm in vmware that will give you a snapshot free copy that you can then use to migrate without snapshots causing issues.

 

[Tmanok]

Attempting to do a live migrate, and I get the following error after clicking the import button on resulting config screen:

Parameter verification failed. (400)

archive: missing property - 'live-restore' requires this property

Did a apt-get upgrade on all nodes (apt-get update didn't update enough) and rebooted all nodes and was able to get it further. Will give more comments on later.

On Proxmox Virtual Environment, you must always run "apt update && apt dist-upgrade" due to the configuration updates that are pushed through to the OS and certain package management conditions present in this project. On Debian based GNU/Linux environments, "apt update" simply checks for available updates, while "apt upgrade" installs those updates. "apt dist-upgrade" meanwhile, will perform all necessary tasks to implement an upgrade, including the uninstallation of packages and the replacement of configuration files.

Additionally, when running updates through the GUI, you will notice the commands used if you pay close attention. I recommend that if you are not familiar with GNU/Linux or Debian, that you stick to the Proxmox VE GUI as much as possible for the time being and slowly practice on virtual machines.

 

[jlauro]

On Proxmox Virtual Environment, you must always run "apt update && apt dist-upgrade" due to the configuration updates that are pushed through to the OS and certain package management conditions present in this project. On Debian based GNU/Linux environments, "apt update" simply checks for available updates, while "apt upgrade" installs those updates. "apt dist-upgrade" meanwhile, will perform all necessary tasks to implement an upgrade, including the uninstallation of packages and the replacement of configuration files.

Additionally, when running updates through the GUI, you will notice the commands used if you pay close attention. I recommend that if you are not familiar with GNU/Linux or Debian, that you stick to the Proxmox VE GUI as much as possible for the time being and slowly practice on virtual machines.

Thanks for the tips. Very familiar with Linux, but only minimal on debian based systems, mostly RH EL based.

Long term, I plan to do very little via the GUI. It doesn't scale, especially when it's not cross cluster and it's not that good for automation...

 

[OlleHallnas]

When you would migrate extreme Fast (depend on Storage) with minimal Downtime, then use my Way, that I use since many Years. VMware storage Migration to a NFS share (mostly from PVE), mount the same Share at PVE. Build VM Configuration and attach VMDKs to the new VM. Shutdown at vSphere and at PVE power on. Then live migrate Disk to your final Datastore. More Information are in the official Proxmox Wiki.

My way would be faster as the data ends up on correct storage directly. Anyway, it was an idea to explore and make the software better.

 

[spirit]

When you would migrate extreme Fast (depend on Storage) with minimal Downtime, then use my Way, that I use since many Years. VMware storage Migration to a NFS share (mostly from PVE), mount the same Share at PVE. Build VM Configuration and attach VMDKs to the new VM. Shutdown at vSphere and at PVE power on. Then live migrate Disk to your final Datastore. More Information are in the official Proxmox Wiki.

I'm doing my migration like this too !

 

[jlauro]

Hey there.
We are looking at replacing Vmware with ProxMox, and I tested migration with the new tool you provided.
I didnt have any disconnect issues, and the import seems to have worked, but it was extremely slow.
I did not go thru a vCenter, but made a direct connection to a esxi server.
Migrating a 220G VM took 10 hours, 22 minutes. I think that works out to like 22Mbit a second? maybe my math is off, but it seems pretty slow.
Certainly not suitable for migrataing our 1145 VMs when the time comes.

I have a 10gb connection for the management port on both the proxmox server and the esxi server.
nvme FC storage on the ESXi side, and the ProxMox server has SSD FC storage.
On the Proxmox side, we are using shared LVM over FC.

Is there anything you guys can think of that I can do to speed things up?
Thanks!

Jason

Any chance you had a snapshot on the vm (even a temporary one such as from a backup being run against it)? I just tested with a couple of real small snapshot to see if import works with one... it seemed to, but took about 4x as long... and probably the more snapshots the longer.

 

[esxiTOprox2024]

hello

my first post

just installed proxmox a few days ago and going to shutdown my esxi at some point
its bye bye vmware.

now i found this nice new tool to import my vms

great i used clonezilla but now this is way better!!!!


edit
regarding the post above
i am also stuck at 0 % for some while but in my case ist running now.
hope is a succes at the end.

well to inform even it takes some while before it started ( so i was wondering if it would fail ) it wa a succes.
my linux machine is transfered and running
now a win 10 machine test ;-)

 

[nettacompany]

create storage failed: failed to spawn fuse mount, process exited with status 65280 (500)

Problems

Esx version 8.1
Proxmox version pve-manager/8.1.10

 

[Xandrios]

Some of my test ESXi hosts are working, others are not - and failing with a timeout when adding the connection.

Specifically (looking at a network capture while making the connection) I see that lots of traffic is passed between PVE and ESXi but the connections have a certain pattern, as if an action is being re-tried continuously. New connection established, little data back-and-forth, connection is closed from PVE side. Error on PVE side is just a saying that an timeout occurred.

 

[ajmorris74]

Sounds like it made over 5GB into the vm before it had a problem. What version of vsphere/esxi do you have?
One thing I noticed compared to my run, is it's not showing it finished creating the logical volume. Working output for mine starts with:
create full clone of drive (vm8:ha-datacenter/iSAN8R6V1/pm-ohq-api-2/pm-ohq-api-2.vmdk)
Logical volume "vm-102-disk-0" created.
transferred 0.0 B of 16.0 GiB (0.00%)
transferred 163.8 MiB of 16.0 GiB (1.00%)
transferred 327.7 MiB of 16.0 GiB (2.00%)
transferred 491.5 MiB of 16.0 GiB (3.00%)
...
Are you trying live migration or not? Either way, you need to power off the source VM. Even if you do live migration, I found you have to turn off the source before starting the migration, and after the logical volume(s) are created it powers on the vm in proxmox and it will boot.

Based on the filename, it looks like there is snapshots on the vm. I think that should work, but, I suggest deleting and consolidating all snapshots first before trying the operation with snapshots. If you need to keep those snapshots for now, you could clone the vm in vmware that will give you a snapshot free copy that you can then use to migrate without snapshots causing issues.

Yep, that's odd that it didn't make the local volume on Proxmox. I am running Proxmox in a 3 node cluster and using CEPH Storage. We are using VMware ESXi, 7.0.3, 21686933 servers in our DC.

I am not live migrating, VM was powered down. I will make a clone of the vmdk disk and try again.

 

[ajmorris74]

Sounds like it made over 5GB into the vm before it had a problem. What version of vsphere/esxi do you have?
One thing I noticed compared to my run, is it's not showing it finished creating the logical volume. Working output for mine starts with:
create full clone of drive (vm8:ha-datacenter/iSAN8R6V1/pm-ohq-api-2/pm-ohq-api-2.vmdk)
Logical volume "vm-102-disk-0" created.
transferred 0.0 B of 16.0 GiB (0.00%)
transferred 163.8 MiB of 16.0 GiB (1.00%)
transferred 327.7 MiB of 16.0 GiB (2.00%)
transferred 491.5 MiB of 16.0 GiB (3.00%)
...
Are you trying live migration or not? Either way, you need to power off the source VM. Even if you do live migration, I found you have to turn off the source before starting the migration, and after the logical volume(s) are created it powers on the vm in proxmox and it will boot.

Based on the filename, it looks like there is snapshots on the vm. I think that should work, but, I suggest deleting and consolidating all snapshots first before trying the operation with snapshots. If you need to keep those snapshots for now, you could clone the vm in vmware that will give you a snapshot free copy that you can then use to migrate without snapshots causing issues.

Since I have a backup of the VM I removed all the snapshots from within vSphere and now Proxmox is importing the VM. It's slow but it's going. Hopefully it will complete the import. Still don't have the creation of the local logical volume..

 

[ajmorris74]

Since I have a backup of the VM I removed all the snapshots from within vSphere and now Proxmox is importing the VM. It's slow but it's going. Hopefully it will complete the import. Still don't have the creation of the local logical volume..

15% then errored out.

 

[devaux]

15% then errored out.

Did you set "Config.HostAgent.vmacore.soap.maxSessionCount" to 0 (or increase at least) on your ESX-hosts?