Ubuntu Manpage: virt-v2v-input-vmware - Using virt-v2v to convert guests from VMware

NAME

       virt-v2v-input-vmware - Using virt-v2v to convert guests from VMware

SYNOPSIS

        virt-v2v -i vmx GUEST.vmx [-o* options]

        virt-v2v -i vmx
           -it ssh
           -ip passwordfile
           'ssh://root@esxi.example.com/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/guest/guest.vmx'
           [-o* options]

        virt-v2v
           -ic 'vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi?no_verify=1'
           -it vddk
           -io vddk-libdir=/path/to/vmware-vix-disklib-distrib
           -io vddk-thumbprint=xx:xx:xx:...
           "GUEST NAME"
           [-o* options]

        virt-v2v -i ova DISK.ova [-o* options]

        virt-v2v
           -ic 'vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi?no_verify=1'
           "GUEST NAME" [-o* options]

DESCRIPTION

This page documents how to use virt-v2v(1) to convert guests from VMware. There are
currently five different methods to access VMware:

-i vmx GUEST.vmx
Full documentation: "INPUT FROM VMWARE VMX"

If you either have a GUEST.vmx file and one or more GUEST.vmdk disk image files, or if
you are able to NFS-mount the VMware storage, then you can use the -i vmx method to
read the source guest.

-i vmx -it ssh ssh://...
Full documentation: "INPUT FROM VMWARE VMX"

This is similar to the method above, except it uses an SSH connection to ESXi to read
the GUEST.vmx file and associated disks. This requires that you have enabled SSH
access to the VMware ESXi hypervisor - in the default ESXi configuration this is
turned off.

-ic vpx://... -it vddk
-ic esx://... -it vddk
Full documentation: "INPUT FROM VDDK"

This method uses the proprietary VDDK library (a.k.a. VixDiskLib) to access the VMware
vCenter server or VMware ESXi hypervisor.

If you have the proprietary library then this method is usually the fastest and most
flexible. If you don't have or don't want to use non-free software then the VMX or
SSH methods above will be best.

-i ova DISK.ova
Full documentation: "INPUT FROM VMWARE OVA"

With this method you must first export the guest (eg. from vSphere) as an .ova file,
which virt-v2v can then read directly. Note this method only works with files
exported from VMware, not OVA files that come from other hypervisors or management
systems, since OVA is only a pretend standard and is not compatible or interoperable
between vendors.

-ic vpx://... "GUEST NAME"
Full documentation: "INPUT FROM VMWARE VCENTER SERVER"

If none of the above methods is available, then use this method to import a guest from
VMware vCenter. This is the slowest method.

INPUT FROM VMWARE VMX

       Virt-v2v is able to import guests from VMware’s vmx files.

       This is useful in two cases:

       1.  VMware virtual machines are stored on a separate NFS server and you are able to mount
           the NFS storage directly.

       2.  You have enabled SSH access to the VMware ESXi hypervisor and there is a
           "/vmfs/volumes" folder containing the virtual machines.

       If you find a folder of files called guest.vmx, guest.vmxf, guest.nvram and one or more
       .vmdk disk images, then you can use this method.

   VMX: Guest must be shut down
       The guest must be shut down before conversion starts.  If you don't shut it down, you will
       end up with a corrupted VM disk on the target.  With other methods, virt-v2v tries to
       prevent concurrent access, but because the -i vmx method works directly against the
       storage, checking for concurrent access is not possible.

   VMX: Access to the storage containing the VMX and VMDK files
       If the vmx and vmdk files aren't available locally then you must either mount the NFS
       storage on the conversion server or enable passwordless SSH on the ESXi hypervisor.

       VMX: SSH authentication

       You can use SSH password authentication, by supplying the name of a file containing the
       password to the -ip option (note this option does not take the password directly).  You
       may need to adjust /etc/ssh/sshd_config on the VMware server to set
       "PasswordAuthentication yes".

       If you are not using password authentication, an alternative is to use ssh-agent, and add
       your ssh public key to /etc/ssh/keys-root/authorized_keys (on the ESXi hypervisor).  After
       doing this, you should check that passwordless access works from the virt-v2v server to
       the ESXi hypervisor.  For example:

        $ ssh root@esxi.example.com
        [ logs straight into the shell, no password is requested ]

       VMX: Construct the SSH URI

       When using the SSH input transport you must specify a remote "ssh://..." URI pointing to
       the VMX file.  A typical URI looks like:

        ssh://root@esxi.example.com/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/my%20guest/my%20guest.vmx

       Any space must be escaped with %20 and other non-ASCII characters may also need to be URI-
       escaped.

       The username is not required if it is the same as your local username.

       You may optionally supply a port number after the hostname if the SSH server is not
       listening on the default port (22).

   VMX: Importing a guest
       To import a vmx file from a local file or NFS, do:

        $ virt-v2v -i vmx guest.vmx -o local -os /var/tmp

       To import a vmx file over SSH, add -it ssh to select the SSH transport and supply a remote
       SSH URI:

        $ virt-v2v \
            -i vmx -it ssh \
            "ssh://root@esxi.example.com/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/guest/guest.vmx" \
            -o local -os /var/tmp

       Virt-v2v processes the vmx file and uses it to find the location of any vmdk disks.

INPUT FROM VDDK

Virt-v2v is able to import guests using VMware’s proprietary VDDK library (a.k.a.
VixDiskLib).

VDDK: Prerequisites
1. As the VDDK library is not open source, and the license of this library does not
permit redistribution or commercial use, you must obtain VDDK yourself and satisfy
yourself that your usage of the library is permitted by the license.

2. nbdkit ≥ 1.6 is recommended, as it ships with the VDDK plugin enabled unconditionally.

3. You must find the SSL "thumbprint" of your VMware server. How to do this is explained
in nbdkit-vddk-plugin(1), also available at the link above.

4. VDDK imports require a feature added in libvirt ≥ 3.7.

VDDK: ESXi NFC service memory limits
In the verbose log you may see errors like:

nbdkit: vddk[3]: error: [NFC ERROR] NfcFssrvrProcessErrorMsg:
received NFC error 5 from server: Failed to allocate the
requested 2097176 bytes

This seems especially common when there are multiple parallel connections open to the
VMware server.

These can be caused by resource limits set on the VMware server. You can increase the
limit for the NFC service by editing /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml and adjusting the
"<maxMemory>" setting:

<nfcsvc>
<path>libnfcsvc.so</path>
<enabled>true</enabled>
<maxMemory>50331648</maxMemory>
<maxStreamMemory>10485760</maxStreamMemory>
</nfcsvc>

and restarting the "hostd" service:

# /etc/init.d/hostd restart

For more information see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1614276.

VDDK: URI
Construct the correct "vpx://" (for vCenter) or "esx://" (for ESXi) URL. It will look
something like these:

vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi

esx://root@esxi.example.com

To verify that you have the correct URL, use the virsh(1) command to list the guests on
the server:

$ virsh -c 'vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi' list --all
Enter root's password for vcenter.example.com: ***

Id Name State
----------------------------------------------------
- Fedora 20 shut off
- Windows 2003 shut off

If you get an error "Peer certificate cannot be authenticated with given CA certificates"
or similar, then you can either import the vCenter host’s certificate, or bypass signature
verification by adding the "?no_verify=1" flag:

$ virsh -c 'vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi?no_verify=1' list --all

You should also try dumping the metadata from any guest on your server, like this:

$ virsh -c 'vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi' dumpxml "Windows 2003"
<domain type='vmware'>
<name>Windows 2003</name>
[...]
<vmware:moref>vm-123</vmware:moref>
</domain>

If "<vmware:moref>" does not appear in the metadata, then you need to upgrade libvirt.

If the above commands do not work, then virt-v2v is not going to work either. Fix your
URI and/or your VMware server before continuing.

VDDK: Importing a guest
The -it vddk parameter selects VDDK as the input transport for disks.

To import a particular guest from vCenter server or ESXi hypervisor, use a command like
the following, substituting the URI, guest name and SSL thumbprint:

$ virt-v2v \
-ic 'vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi?no_verify=1' \
-it vddk \
-io vddk-libdir=/path/to/vmware-vix-disklib-distrib \
-io vddk-thumbprint=xx:xx:xx:... \
"Windows 2003" \
-o local -os /var/tmp

Other options that you might need to add in rare circumstances include -io vddk-config,
-io vddk-cookie, -io vddk-nfchostport, -io vddk-port, -io vddk-snapshot, and -io vddk-
transports, which are all explained in the nbdkit-vddk-plugin(1) documentation. Do not
use these options unless you know what you are doing.

VDDK: Debugging VDDK failures
The VDDK library can be operated in a verbose mode where it gives (very) verbose messages.
Use ‘virt-v2v -v -x’ as usual to enable verbose messages.

VDDK: Slow imports and repeated NBD_ClientOpen messages
If imports over VDDK are slow, and ‘virt-v2v -v -x’ shows many "NBD_ClientOpen" messages,
then you are hitting an apparent bug in VDDK 6.7 (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1901489).
Upgrade to at least VDDK 7 to resolve the issue.

INPUT FROM VMWARE OVA

       Virt-v2v is able to import guests from VMware’s OVA (Open Virtualization Appliance) files.
       Only OVAs exported from VMware vSphere will work.

   OVA: Create OVA
       To create an OVA in vSphere, use the "Export OVF Template" option (from the VM context
       menu, or from the File menu).  Either "Folder of files" (OVF) or "Single file" (OVA) will
       work, but OVA is probably easier to deal with.  OVA files are really just uncompressed tar
       files, so you can use commands like "tar tf VM.ova" to view their contents.

       Create OVA with ovftool

       You can also use VMware’s proprietary "ovftool":

        ovftool --noSSLVerify \
          vi://USER:PASSWORD@esxi.example.com/VM \
          VM.ova

       To connect to vCenter:

        ovftool  --noSSLVerify \
          vi://USER:PASSWORD@vcenter.example.com/DATACENTER-NAME/vm/VM \
          VM.ova

       For Active Directory-aware authentication using down-level logon names ("DOMAIN\USER"),
       you have to express the "\" character in the form of its ascii hex-code (%5c):

        vi://DOMAIN%5cUSER:PASSWORD@...

   OVA: Importing a guest
       To import an OVA file called VM.ova, do:

        $ virt-v2v -i ova VM.ova -o local -os /var/tmp

       If you exported the guest as a "Folder of files", or if you unpacked the OVA tarball
       yourself, then you can point virt-v2v at the directory containing the files:

        $ virt-v2v -i ova /path/to/files -o local -os /var/tmp

INPUT FROM VMWARE VCENTER SERVER

Virt-v2v is able to import guests from VMware vCenter Server.

vCenter ≥ 5.0 is required. If you don’t have vCenter, using OVA or VMX is recommended
instead (see "INPUT FROM VMWARE OVA" and/or "INPUT FROM VMWARE VMX").

Virt-v2v uses libvirt for access to vCenter, and therefore the input mode should be -i
libvirt. As this is the default, you don't need to specify it on the command line.

vCenter: URI
The libvirt URI of a vCenter server looks something like this:

vpx://user@server/Datacenter/esxi

where:

"user@"
is the (optional, but recommended) user to connect as.

If the username contains a backslash (eg. "DOMAIN\USER") then you will need to URI-
escape that character using %5c: "DOMAIN%5cUSER" (5c is the hexadecimal ASCII code for
backslash.) Other punctuation may also have to be escaped.

"server"
is the vCenter Server (not hypervisor).

"Datacenter"
is the name of the datacenter.

If the name contains a space, replace it with the URI-escape code %20.

"esxi"
is the name of the ESXi hypervisor running the guest.

If the VMware deployment is using folders, then these may need to be added to the URI, eg:

vpx://user@server/Folder/Datacenter/esxi

For full details of libvirt URIs, see: http://libvirt.org/drvesx.html

Typical errors from libvirt / virsh when the URI is wrong include:

• Could not find datacenter specified in [...]

• Could not find compute resource specified in [...]

• Path [...] does not specify a compute resource

• Path [...] does not specify a host system

• Could not find host system specified in [...]

vCenter: Test libvirt connection to vCenter
Use the virsh(1) command to list the guests on the vCenter Server like this:

$ virsh -c 'vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi' list --all
Enter root's password for vcenter.example.com: ***

Id Name State
----------------------------------------------------
- Fedora 20 shut off
- Windows 2003 shut off

$ virsh -c 'vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi?no_verify=1' list --all

You should also try dumping the metadata from any guest on your server, like this:

$ virsh -c 'vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi' dumpxml "Windows 2003"
<domain type='vmware'>
<name>Windows 2003</name>
[...]
</domain>

If the above commands do not work, then virt-v2v is not going to work either. Fix your
libvirt configuration and/or your VMware vCenter Server before continuing.

vCenter: Importing a guest
To import a particular guest from vCenter Server, do:

$ virt-v2v -ic 'vpx://root@vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi?no_verify=1' \
"Windows 2003" \
-o local -os /var/tmp

where "Windows 2003" is the name of the guest (which must be shut down).

Note that you may be asked for the vCenter password twice. This happens once because
libvirt needs it, and a second time because virt-v2v itself connects directly to the
server. Use -ip filename to supply a password via a file.

In this case the output flags are set to write the converted guest to a temporary
directory as this is just an example, but you can also write to libvirt or any other
supported target.

vCenter: Non-administrator role
Instead of using the vCenter Administrator role, you can create a custom non-administrator
role to perform the conversion. You will however need to give it a minimum set of
permissions as follows (using VMware vCenter 6.5):

1. Create a custom role in vCenter.

2. Enable (check) the following objects:

Datastore:
- Browse datastore
- Low level file operations

Sessions:
- Validate session

Virtual Machine:
Interaction:
- Guest operating system management by VIX API
Provisioning:
- Allow disk access
- Allow read-only disk access

Cryptographic operations:
- Decrypt
- Direct Access

vCenter: Firewall and proxy settings
vCenter: Ports

If there is a firewall between the virt-v2v conversion server and the vCenter server, then
you will need to open port 443 (https) and port 5480.

Port 443 is used to copy the guest disk image(s). Port 5480 is used to query vCenter for
guest metadata.

These port numbers are only the defaults. It is possible to reconfigure vCenter to use
other port numbers. In that case you would need to specify those ports in the "vpx://"
URI. See "vCenter: URI" above.

These ports only apply to virt-v2v conversions. You may have to open other ports for
other vCenter functionality, for example the web user interface. VMware documents the
required ports for vCenter in their online documentation.

┌────────────┐ port 443 ┌────────────┐ ┌────────────┐
│ virt-v2v │────────────▶ vCenter │────────▶ ESXi │
│ conversion │────────────▶ server │ │ hypervisor │
│ server │ port 5480 │ │ │ ┌─────┐ │
└────────────┘ └────────────┘ │ │guest│ │
└───┴─────┴──┘

(In the diagram above the arrows show the direction in which the TCP connection is
initiated, not necessarily the direction of data transfer.)

Virt-v2v itself does not connect directly to the ESXi hypervisor containing the guest.
However vCenter connects to the hypervisor and forwards the information, so if you have a
firewall between vCenter and its hypervisors you may need to open additional ports
(consult VMware documentation).

The proxy environment variables ("https_proxy", "all_proxy", "no_proxy", "HTTPS_PROXY",
"ALL_PROXY" and "NO_PROXY") are ignored when doing vCenter conversions.

vCenter: SSL/TLS certificate problems
You may see this error:

CURL: Error opening file: SSL: no alternative certificate subject
name matches target host name

(You may need to enable debugging with ‘virt-v2v -v -x’ to see this message).

This can be caused by using an IP address instead of the fully-qualified DNS domain name
of the vCenter server, ie. use "vpx://vcenter.example.com/..." instead of
"vpx://11.22.33.44/..."

Another certificate problem can be caused by the vCenter server having a mismatching FQDN
and IP address, for example if the server acquired a new IP address from DHCP. To fix
this you need to change your DHCP server or network configuration so that the vCenter
server always gets a stable IP address. After that log in to the vCenter server’s admin
console at "https://vcenter:5480/". Under the "Admin" tab, select "Certificate
regeneration enabled" and then reboot it.

vCenter: "Out of HTTP sessions: Limited to ..."
VMware vCenter appears to limit HTTP sessions and in some circumstances virt-v2v may
exceed this number. You can adjust or remove the limit by editing
/etc/vmware-vpx/vpxd.cfg on the vCenter server. Increase the "<maxSessionCount>" field,
or set it to 0 which makes it unlimited:

AUTHOR

       Richard W.M. Jones

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2009-2020 Red Hat Inc.

LICENSE

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
       the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
       version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;
       without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
       See the GNU General Public License for more details.

       You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program;
       if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
       Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

BUGS

       To get a list of bugs against libguestfs, use this link:
       https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools

       To report a new bug against libguestfs, use this link:
       https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools

       When reporting a bug, please supply:

       •   The version of libguestfs.

       •   Where you got libguestfs (eg. which Linux distro, compiled from source, etc)

       •   Describe the bug accurately and give a way to reproduce it.

       •   Run libguestfs-test-tool(1) and paste the complete, unedited output into the bug
           report.