Migrating VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server Virtual Machines

VMware ESX Server 2.0

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You can migrate virtual machines created with VMware Workstation 4 or earlier or VMware GSX Server 2.5.1 or earlier to your VMware ESX Server system.

The virtual machine you want to migrate must have been configured with a virtual SCSI disk and have a supported guest operating system installed. For the list of supported guest operating systems, see Supported Guest Operating Systems.

Note: Virtual machines created under versions earlier than GSX Server 2.0 or Workstation 3.2 must be upgraded to ESX Server 1.5 before they can be migrated to ESX Server 2.0. Once these virtual machines run under ESX Server 1.5, you can migrate them to ESX Server 2.0. See the upgrade instructions at www.vmware.com/support/ esx15/doc/install_esx.html.

First you need to import the virtual disks and any redo logs to the server and create a new virtual machine configuration. See Importing a GSX Server or Workstation Virtual Machine.

On the VMFS partition where you store your virtual machines, make sure you have enough space to hold the full capacity of the source virtual disk. A virtual disk created in ESX Server has its full capacity allocated at the time the virtual disk file is created; for a 2GB virtual disk, the virtual disk file is 2GB in size at the time the disk is created.

In VMware Workstation and GSX Server, the virtual disk file usually starts smaller and grows to the maximum capacity as data is added. Thus, you can create a 2GB virtual disk, install the guest operating system and the virtual disk may be contained in a 500MB file. However, when you migrate the virtual disk to ESX Server, the import process converts the disk for ESX Server and the disk occupies 2GB of space on the partition.

Caution: If you created a virtual disk that is contained in a single .vmdk file larger than 2GB (the default for Workstation 4 virtual disks) and want to migrate the virtual disk to ESX Server, you must FTP or copy the disk from the Workstation host to the ESX Server machine. Once the file has been copied to the service console, you must use vmkfstools to import the disk into ESX Server. For the syntax on how to import the disk, see Examples Using vmkfstools.

If the virtual disk has a redo log (GSX Server 2.5 or Workstation 3.2 or earlier virtual machines) or a snapshot (Workstation 4 virtual machines) associated with it, you can choose to do either of the following:

If you want the most current representation of the virtual disk before you import it, commit the changes in the redo log or take a snapshot just before importing.
If you want to use the base disk, discard the changes in the redo log or migrate the virtual machine without the snapshot (.vmss) file.

When you install VMware Tools in the VMware ESX Server virtual machine, you may set up a new network driver.

Virtual machines migrated from Workstation and GSX Server cannot be configured to use more than one virtual processor.

Problems Importing GSX Server Virtual Machines to ESX Server

If you used vmkfstools to import a virtual machine created under GSX Server to ESX Server, after you import the virtual machine, you may see the following message:

"Disk geometry mismatch. To power on the virtual machine you should specify scsi<adapter-id>:<target-id>.biosGeometry="<cylinders>/<heads>/<sectors>" in the configuration file."

A similar problem may occur if you used the management interface file manager to import the virtual machine, though no message appears. If you have problems powering on a virtual machine with the imported disk, then you may have a mismatch with the virtual disk's geometry.

Virtual disks created under GSX Server use a different disk geometry than virtual disks created under ESX Server. To determine the correct disk geometry, run the following vmkfstools command on the source virtual disk (the copy of the virtual disk on the GSX Server host, not the disk in a VMFS partition):

vmkfstools -g //path/to/<sourceVirtualDisk>.vmdk

Once you determine the disk geometry, you can add the correct geometry information to the configuration file. To modify the configuration file, follow the steps under Modifying the Configuration File Directly (Advanced Users Only).

Create an option called scsi<adapter-id>:<target-id>.biosGeometry and set the value of the option to "<cylinders>/<heads>/<sectors>", where <adapter-id>:<target-id> is the SCSI ID of the virtual disk on the ESX Server system and "<cylinders>/<heads>/<sectors>" is the number of cylinders, heads and sectors on the virtual disk returned by the vmkfstools command.

For example, if the virtual disk is located on the SCSI 0:0 node in the virtual machine on the ESX Server system, and you determine that the disk geometry of the original virtual disk (the one on the GSX Server host) contains 261 cylinders, 255 heads and 63 sectors, you would add the following option to the configuration file:

scsi0:0.biosGeometry

And you would assign the following value to the new option:

261/255/63

Otherwise, if you do not add the new geometry information to the configuration file, when you power on the virtual machine, a message appears stating Error loading operating system. To power on the virtual machine, you must add the new option to the configuration file, as discussed above.

Importing a GSX Server or Workstation Virtual Machine

Follow these steps to import a virtual machine to VMware ESX Server.

Be sure you have access to the files in the directory that holds the source virtual machine. You may be able to mount the source location, or you may prefer to FTP or copy the files to a temporary folder on the service console.
If you are not sure where the source files are, open the virtual machine in the VMware product you used to create it, open the Configuration Editor (Settings > Configuration Editor). On a Windows host, click the name of the drive you want to migrate. In the Disk file section, click Choose to see the location information. On a Linux host, expand the SCSI Drives tree and click the name of the drive you want to migrate. Click Choose to see the location information.
Using a Web browser, log in to the ESX Server machine as root and click Manage Files. Use the file manager in the VMware Management Interface to perform all the file copy steps described below. For information on using the file manager, see Using the VMware Management Interface File Manager.
In the file manager, navigate to the location of the source disk files. Select the main disk (.vmdk or .dsk) file for the virtual disk you are migrating, then click Copy.
Caution: Do not cut the virtual disk file. This ensures you have a backup copy of the virtual disk.
Navigate to the vmfs folder and open the folder for the VMFS partition where you want to store the virtual disk file. Click Paste.
A dialog box appears with the message "You are transferring one or more console virtual disks to a VMFS partition. In order for virtual machines to access these disks, they must be converted to the VMFS format. Although you can convert console disks at any time, it is recommended that you do so now."
This means the VMFS partition recognizes the files as a virtual disk and converts the disk to the VMFS-2 format during the import. This allows the disk to be accessed by virtual machines running under ESX Server 2.0.
The file you are pasting is selected. Click OK.
The virtual disk is imported to the VMFS partition and converted to the new format.
Note: If you do not see the message about transferring disks, there is a problem with the import. Be sure you are pasting to the correct vmfs folder.
Select the newly imported .dsk file, then click Edit Properties.
Change the user and group names in the right-hand column so the file's owner and group match those of the user who will run the virtual machine.
Click OK.
Log out, then log back in as the user who will run the new virtual machine.
Create a new virtual machine as described in Creating a New Virtual Machine. When you set the file name for the new virtual machine's disk, be sure to use the virtual disk file you just copied to the VMFS partition.
If you imported the virtual machine from ESX Server 1.5.2, GSX Server 2.5.1 or Workstation 3.2 or earlier, upgrade the virtual hardware.
Make sure the virtual machine is powered off. On the Status Monitor page, click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon ( ) and choose Configure Hardware. On the Hardware tab, click Upgrade Virtual Hardware, then click OK to upgrade the hardware.
If you imported a Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP virtual disk from Workstation 4.0 or GSX Server 2.5, you need to modify one entry in the virtual machine's configuration file before you power on the virtual machine.
To modify the configuration file, follow the steps at Modifying the Configuration File Directly (Advanced Users Only). In the configuration file, look for the option scsi0.virtualDev and change the value from vmxlsilogic to vmxbuslogic.
Boot your virtual machine in a remote console and install VMware Tools and the network driver in the virtual machine. For more information, see Installing VMware Tools in the Guest Operating System.
Some guest operating systems display messages about detecting hardware changes and require you to reboot the virtual machine. This occurs because VMware ESX Server uses an emulation for chipsets and BIOS that is slightly different from those used by other VMware products.

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