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3.3.5. Converting a VMware ESX / ESX(i) virtual machine
Important
When converting a Windows virtual machine from VMware ESX / ESX(i), ensure that VMware Tools is not installed on the virtual machine. The VMware Tools must be uninstalled prior to the conversion process. If a virtual machine is converted with the VMware Tools installed, it will not function correctly.
Ensure that the virtual machine is stopped prior to running the v2v process.
To convert the virtual machine, run:
virt-v2v -ic esx://esx.example.com/ -op pool --bridge bridge_name guest_name
Where
esx.example.com is the VMware ESX / ESX(i) server, pool is the local storage pool to hold the image, bridge_name is the name of a local network bridge to connect the converted virtual machine's network to, and guest_name is the name of the virtual machine.
You may also use the
--network parameter to connect to a locally managed network if your virtual machine only has a single network interface. If your virtual machine has multiple network interfaces, edit /etc/virt-v2v.conf to specify the network mapping for all interfaces.
3.3.5.1. Authenticating to the ESX / ESX(i) server
Connecting to the ESX / ESX(i) server will require authentication.
virt-v2v supports password authentication when connecting to ESX / ESX(i). It reads passwords from $HOME/.netrc. The format of this file is described in the netrc(5) man page. An example entry is:
machine esx.example.com login root password s3cr3t
Note
The
.netrc file must have a permission mask of 0600 to be read correctly by virt-v2v.
