10.14. Exporting and Importing Virtual Machines and Templates
Virtual machines and templates stored in Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) can be exported from and imported to data centers in the same or different Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization environment.
To export or import virtual machines and templates, an active export domain must be attached to the data center containing the virtual machine or template to be exported or imported. An export domain acts as a temporary storage area containing two directories for each exported virtual machine or template. One directory contains the OVF files for the virtual machine or template. The other directory holds the disk image or images for the virtual machine or template.
There are three stages to exporting and importing virtual machines and templates:
- Export the virtual machine or template to an export domain.
- Detach the export domain from one data center, and attach it to another. You can attach it to a different data center in the same Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization environment, or attach it to a data center in a separate Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization environment that is managed by another installation of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager.
Note
An export domain can only be active in one data center at a given time. This means that the export domain must be attached to either the source data center or the destination data center. - Import the virtual machine or template into the data center to which the export domain is attached.
When you export or import a virtual machine or template, properties including basic details such as the name and description, resource allocation, and high availability settings of that virtual machine or template are preserved. However, if a virtual machine or template is imported into a different Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization environment, user roles and permissions may be different and will need to be updated to ensure appropriate access is available.
You can also import virtual machines from other virtualization providers such as Xen, VMware or Windows virtual machines using the V2V feature. V2V converts virtual machines and places them in the export domain.
For more information on V2V, see Converting Virtual Machines from Other Hypervisors to KVM with virt-v2v.
10.14.1. Graphical Overview for Exporting and Importing Virtual Machines and Templates
This procedure provides a graphical overview of the steps required to export a virtual machine or template from one data center and import that virtual machine or template into another data center.
Procedure 10.50. Exporting and Importing Virtual Machines and Templates
- Attach the export domain to the source data center.
- Export the virtual machine or template to the export domain.
- Detach the export domain from the source data center.
- Attach the export domain to the destination data center.
- Import the virtual machine or template into the destination data center.
10.14.2. Exporting a Virtual Machine to the Export Domain
Export a virtual machine to the export domain so that it can be imported into a different data center. Before you begin, the export domain must be attached to the data center that contains the virtual machine to be exported. The virtual machine must be stopped.
Procedure 10.51. Exporting a Virtual Machine to the Export Domain
- Click the Virtual Machines tab and select a virtual machine.
- Click to open the Export Virtual Machine window.
- Optionally select the following check boxes:
- Force Override: overrides existing images of the virtual machine on the export domain.
- Collapse Snapshots: creates a single export volume per disk. This option removes snapshot restore points and includes the template in a template-based virtual machine, and removes any dependencies a virtual machine has on a template. For a virtual machine that is dependent on a template, either select this option, export the template with the virtual machine, or make sure the template exists in the destination data center.
Note
When you create a virtual machine from a template, two storage allocation options are available under → → .- If Clone was selected, the virtual machine is not dependent on the template. The template does not have to exist in the destination data center.
- If Thin was selected, the virtual machine is dependent on the template, so the template must exist in the destination data center or be exported with the virtual machine. Alternatively, select the Collapse Snapshots check box to collapse the template disk and virtual machine disk into a single disk.
To check which option was selected, select a virtual machine and click the General tab in the details pane.
- Click to export the virtual machine and close the window.
The export of the virtual machine begins. The virtual machine displays in the Virtual Machines results list with an
Image Locked status while it is exported. Depending on the size of your virtual machine hard disk images, and your storage hardware, this can take up to an hour. Use the Events tab to view the progress. When complete, the virtual machine has been exported to the export domain and displays on the VM Import tab of the export domain's details pane.
10.14.3. Importing a Virtual Machine into the Destination Data Center
You have a virtual machine on an export domain. Before the virtual machine can be imported to a new data center, the export domain must be attached to the destination data center.
Procedure 10.52. Importing a Virtual Machine into the Destination Data Center
- Click the Storage tab, and select the export domain in the results list. The export domain must have a status of
Active. - Select the VM Import tab in the details pane to list the available virtual machines to import.
- Select one or more virtual machines to import and click .
- Select the Default Storage Domain and Cluster.
- Select the Collapse Snapshots check box to remove snapshot restore points and include templates in template-based virtual machines.
- Click the virtual machine to be imported and click on the Disks sub-tab. From this tab, you can use the Allocation Policy and Storage Domain drop-down lists to select whether the disk used by the virtual machine will be thinly provisioned or preallocated, and can also select the storage domain on which the disk will be stored. An icon is also displayed to indicate which of the disks to be imported acts as the boot disk for that virtual machine.
- Click to import the virtual machines.The Import Virtual Machine Conflict window opens if the virtual machine exists in the virtualized environment.
- Choose one of the following radio buttons:
- Don't import
- Import as cloned and enter a unique name for the virtual machine in the New Name field.
- Optionally select the Apply to all check box to import all duplicated virtual machines with the same suffix, and then enter a suffix in the Suffix to add to the cloned VMs field.
- Click OK.
Important
During a single import operation, you can only import virtual machines that share the same architecture. If any of the virtual machines to be imported have a different architecture to that of the other virtual machines to be imported, a warning will display and you will be prompted to change your selection so that only virtual machines with the same architecture will be imported.