How To Migrate A VMWare ESXi 4 VM To KVM-Based Virtuozzo 7

Slim chance you're using this old software, but there is hope, the migration can be done!

Published on February 12, 2019

3 min read

Although this migration was designed to migrate VMs from ESXi 4 to Virtuozzo 7, once the disks are converted to a KVM-compatible qcow2 virtual disk format you can simply use KVM to run the VM.

This article will assume the following host names, please modify the commands to suit your needs.

Host Type	Host Name
ESXi 4 host:	`ESXi_HOST`
ESXi 4 VM:	`ESXi_VM_NAME`
Virtuozzo 7 host:	`Virtuozzo7`
Virtuozzo 7 VM:	`ESXi_VM_NAME`

Gotchas

You must use virt-v2v-copy-to-local instead of virt-v2v to migrate the VM because we are connecting to an ESXi host and not vSphere. virt-v2v requires vSphere to export the config.
Once migrated, you must rename the file extension of converted virtual disks to *.hdd in order for KVM/Virtuozzo 7 to recognize the disks to start the VM.

Prepare The KVM/Virtuozzo Host

The following instructions will assume you are using Virtuozzo 7, but newer Virtuozzo versions should also work, and a similar procedure should work for KVM hosts.

Create a new KVM/Virtuozzo VM using same original VM name as the ESXi host's; we'll use ESXi_VM_NAME for our examples.

bash:This example assumes the VM is running CentOS 7

[root@Virtuozzo7 ~]# mkdir -p /vz/private/ESXi_VM_NAME
[root@Virtuozzo7 ~]# prlctl create ESXi_VM_NAME --distribution centos7 --vmtype vm

bash:Get GUID of new Virtuozzo VM

[root@Virtuozzo7 ~]# prlctl list -a | grep ESXi_VM_NAME
{a8bee0ea-9583-42e2-b01e-29274be0be17}  stopped      -               VM ESXi_VM_NAME

bash:List new Virtuozzo VM's disks

[root@Virtuozzo7 ~]# ls /vz/vmprivate/a8bee0ea-9583-42e2-b01e-29274be0be17/
config.pvs  config.pvs.backup  harddisk.hdd

bash:Delete new Virtuozzo VM's empty virtual disk

[root@Virtuozzo7 ~]# prlctl set ESXi_VM_NAME --device-del hdd0 --destroy-image

ESXi 4 to KVM Migration

Export the ESXi VM's XML config file

bash:From the ESXi host, export via migration the VM's XML configuration file to the same ESXi host

[root@ESXi_HOST ~]# virt-v2v-copy-to-local  -v -x -ic esx://root@ESXi_HOST ESXi_VM_NAME

Now for the main act: migrate and convert the ESXi virtual disk. We will convert the virtual disk to qcow2 format which is supported by both KVM and Virtuozzo 7.

Be sure to replace ESXi_VM_NAME and NEW_VIRTUOZZO_VM_GUID with your appropriate values.

bash:Migrate ESXi VM's virtual disk to Virtuozzo, performing conversion to qcow2 format

[root@ESXi_HOST ~]# virt-v2v -i libvirtxml ESXi_VM_NAME.xml -o local -of qcow2 -os /vz/vmprivate/NEW_VIRTUOZZO_VM_GUID/ -v -x

bash:Rename migrated virtual disk to *.hdd and import it into KVM/Virtuozzo VM

[root@Virtuozzo7 ~]# mv /vz/vmprivate/NEW_VIRTUOZZO_VM_GUID/ESXi_VM_NAME-sda /vz/vmprivate/NEW_VIRTUOZZO_VM_GUID/ESXi_VM_NAME-sda.hdd
[root@Virtuozzo7 ~]# prlctl set ESXi_VM_NAME --device-add hdd --image /vz/vmprivate/NEW_VIRTUOZZO_VM_GUID/ESXi_VM_NAME-sda.hdd

Use the KVM/Virtuozzo GUI to configure the migrated VM's hostname, DNS, search domain, routed IP, and any other needed settings.

You'll need to create the appropriate ifcfg network script in the migrated VM's /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/, assuming CentOS 7.

bash:Setup migrated VM's networking. Be sure to use appropriate network addresses

[root@ESXi_VM_NAME ~]# nano /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
ONBOOT=yes
IPADDR=199.204.213.63
GATEWAY=199.204.213.1
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
DEVICE=eth0

bash:Restart migrated VM's network

ifcfg eth0 down
ifcfg eth0 up