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Re: [Xen-users] VMware guests to xen

To: <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "xen-users" <xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-users] VMware guests to xen
From: "Nick Couchman" <Nick.Couchman@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:40:56 -0700
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There are a couple of ways to do this.  First, you're not going to be able to automatically pull in your VMX file - I don't know of a way to do that.  Second, I've not actually done this with VMware Server - I've only migrated ESX machines over, so these methods may or may not work.
 
With ESX machines (and possibly Server 2.0 machines, don't know), there are two disk files - a <VM>.vmdk file and a <VM>-flat.vmdk file.  The first file is the descriptor, the second is just the RAW disk data.  This makes migrating these disk really, really easy, because all you have to do is point your XEN configuration at the -flat.vmdk file, and Xen should see it as a raw disk file, read the partition information, etc.  If server has the same two files for each disk, migrating your server disks should work about the same.
 
If your disks are split into 2GB files, or the Server arrangement is different from this, I've found the qemu-img utility to be pretty helpful.  You can get this as part of the Qemu package - it has a "convert" mode that allows you to convert disks from one type to another, including VMDK files.  You can specify the source VMDK file and a destination RAW file, and it should pull the disk information over for you.
 
The second major part is converting the operating system.  In ESX, at least, the virtual disks are all SCSI disks.  In Xen, they're all IDE disks.  So, you have to have a way to tell the Operating System to use SCSI disks rather than IDE disks.  Someone else already mentioned one method for Windows - there should be a couple other ones floating around other there.  I used one recently, but have forgotten what it was.  If your guests are Linux guests (or any of the other UNIX and BSD variants), then setting them up for this should be fairly easy - before you shut down your guest, simply reconfigure your kernel (depending on your guest configuration, this could mean rebuilding it or simply remaking an initrd) to support the PIIX IDE controller, then shut it down, transfer it, and boot it up.  You may also have to adjust things like the root= at boot time and the /etc/fstab entries from sda to hda or something similar.
 
-Nick

>>> "lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 2009/01/15 16:16 >>>
So, the users on the VMware forums tell me I need to talk with xen users to find out how to convert VMware Server 2.0 guests over to xen.

Anyone have some help they could offer? Been looking all over the net but keep finding information which is never the same the next time. I'm guessing there must be a tool or information on how to do this by now.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Mike




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