VMware Converter - Converting an Existing Linux System
The Converter is a client/server program, where the converter server runs on ecsvm-admin.ecs and the client can run anywhere, such as win-admin.
Firewall Rules
If the source physical Linux system is in the DMZ, you will need to add a couple of rules to the firewall "Short-Term Rules" section allowing all traffic from ECS-internal to the source host and from the source host to ECS-internal. You should remove these rules again once the conversion has completed.
Before You Start
On the final virtual machine, you will need to install the VMware tools and set the VM settings to synchronise the time on the VM with that of the ecsvm-admin server. So you won't want ntpd to be running. Also, you are going to need to reboot the VM at least once after you have converted it, so stop and disable the primary user services (e.g. httpd, mysqld) that are running on the server. You can start up the user services again as the last step after getting the VM Linux system running. So I would start with
service ntpd stop
service httpd stop
service mysqld stop
chkconfig ntpd off
chkconfig httpd off
chkconfig mysqld off
Also, if the physical source machine is actually a Windows 2008 Hyper-V VM, then you will want to do the same to the "inputvsc" service, and copy the seth0 device settings to eth0 (remembering to change the device name in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 after copying the ifcfg-seth0 file onto it) as VMware will use the eth0 device and not the seth0 device.
Once running in VMware, the kernel will need to be able to "probe" the disk controllers in order to be able to find the controller types. So in /boot/grub/grub.conf, edit the kernel command line arguments and remove any settings that set "hda=noprobe" or similar. You don't need to reboot after this change, this will be applied once the VM conversion has finished and VMware starts the new VM.
Starting the Conversion
Start the VMWare Converter Standalone Client program.
IP Address/Name = ecsvm-admin:7443
Username = administrator (or your own sys* username if you are registered on the vSphere with an account).
Password = Windows-infrastructure password
Click the "Convert Machine" button in the toolbar.
Source type = Powered-on machine
Give remote machine full hostname.
Give root username and password.
Next.
VMware Infrastructure server details:
Server = ecsvm-admin
Username = administrator (or your sys* username if you have an account on vSphere).
Password = Windows-infrastructure password (or yours).
Next.
Select host to run the VM on = ecsvm-admin1.ecs.soton.ac.uk.
Virtual machine name = short hostname (eg. gander).
Datastore = infrastore1-Vol2 (an infrastore volume with plenty of free space).
Virtual machine version = Version 7.
Next.
Options
Destination Attributes: Name = short hostname, Folder = ecs
Data to copy: Click "Advanced...", then "Target Layout...".
Set all large, non-swap filesystems to "Thin provisioning" (this is "Dynamic disks" in Microsoft speak, where only the disk space in use is actually allocated on disk, used disk space expands as necessary to hold the data, up to the maximum set by the size of the filesystem).
Set the Size of the normal large filesystems (eg. "/") to a reasonable number, no point in making them huge, most will fit in 40Gbytes.
Switch to the "Source Volumes" tab to see how much space is actually in use at the moment.
Normally set / to thin provisioning, 40GBytes, leave /boot and swap alone.
Devices: Numer of processors = 1.
Disk controller = SCSI LSI Logic or SCSI Buslogic.
Memory = usually the default will be fine.
Networks: Network adapters to connect = 1
Set the network for the network adapter to be the same Virtual Machine Network VLAN as the physical machine you are converting.
The new virtual machine will take over the IP address of the physical source machine.
Advanced Options: Power on target machine = yes
Power off source machine = yes
Reconfigure destination virtual machine = yes
Helper VM Network: Look up the IP address of the host "ecsvm--helper" which is a spare IP address unused by anything else in the same "" as the physical host you are converting. There are currently hosts defined such as "ecsvm-systems-helper", "ecsvm-dmz-helper" and "ecsvm-servers-helper". The IP configuration parameters and DNS setup for the Helper VM Network must all be consistent with its IP address. This "helper" machine is a temporary system setup by the VMware Converter just for use during the process of converting a Linux box, it disappears again at the end.
Next.
It should now just show you the final option settings and then start the process of converting the host. Wait for the whole process to finish before touching either the source (physical) or destination (virtual) machines.
How long it takes depends on the quantity of data that has to be moved. You can expect about 20 to 25 MBytes/second conversion speed. A machine with about 7GB of used disk takes about 25 minutes to convert.
As the process is run by the Converter Server (running on ecsvm-admin), it doesn't matter if you quit the Windows app used to watch the process, you can track the progress of the conversion from the Converter Windows app running on any PC.
After the Conversion has Finished
Open a console on the new VM.
In the "VM/Guest" menu, install the VM tools.
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
cd /tmp
tar xzf /mnt/VM*
umount /mnt
cd vmware*
./vmware-tools-install.pl
Accept all the defaults. It will find suitable modules for your kernel, or else will compile them itself, and build a new initrd, grub.conf and modprobe.conf for your kernel.
Assuming that succeeded, then
shutdown -h now
Once the VM has stopped, edit the settings of the VM and choose the middle "Options" tab. In the "VMware Tools" settings, right at the bottom right of the dialog there is an option to "Synchronize guest time with host". Tick this box.
Okay that, then power on the VM.
It should successfully boot.
The only remaining tasks are to enable and start up the user services, but not ntpd.
chkconfig mysqld on
chkconfig httpd on
service mysqld start
service httpd start
The VM should now be fully running happily and serving its services to the users. If you prefer, you can always reboot the VM again instead of running those last two "service ... start" commands to prove it is all okay and booting correctly.
Now just remove the two temporary firewall rules you added at the start of this process.
Firewall Rules
If the source physical Linux system is in the DMZ, you will need to add a couple of rules to the firewall "Short-Term Rules" section allowing all traffic from ECS-internal to the source host and from the source host to ECS-internal. You should remove these rules again once the conversion has completed.
Before You Start
On the final virtual machine, you will need to install the VMware tools and set the VM settings to synchronise the time on the VM with that of the ecsvm-admin server. So you won't want ntpd to be running. Also, you are going to need to reboot the VM at least once after you have converted it, so stop and disable the primary user services (e.g. httpd, mysqld) that are running on the server. You can start up the user services again as the last step after getting the VM Linux system running. So I would start with
service ntpd stop
service httpd stop
service mysqld stop
chkconfig ntpd off
chkconfig httpd off
chkconfig mysqld off
Also, if the physical source machine is actually a Windows 2008 Hyper-V VM, then you will want to do the same to the "inputvsc" service, and copy the seth0 device settings to eth0 (remembering to change the device name in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 after copying the ifcfg-seth0 file onto it) as VMware will use the eth0 device and not the seth0 device.
Once running in VMware, the kernel will need to be able to "probe" the disk controllers in order to be able to find the controller types. So in /boot/grub/grub.conf, edit the kernel command line arguments and remove any settings that set "hda=noprobe" or similar. You don't need to reboot after this change, this will be applied once the VM conversion has finished and VMware starts the new VM.
Starting the Conversion
Start the VMWare Converter Standalone Client program.
IP Address/Name = ecsvm-admin:7443
Username = administrator (or your own sys* username if you are registered on the vSphere with an account).
Password = Windows-infrastructure password
Click the "Convert Machine" button in the toolbar.
Source type = Powered-on machine
Give remote machine full hostname.
Give root username and password.
Next.
VMware Infrastructure server details:
Server = ecsvm-admin
Username = administrator (or your sys* username if you have an account on vSphere).
Password = Windows-infrastructure password (or yours).
Next.
Select host to run the VM on = ecsvm-admin1.ecs.soton.ac.uk.
Virtual machine name = short hostname (eg. gander).
Datastore = infrastore1-Vol2 (an infrastore volume with plenty of free space).
Virtual machine version = Version 7.
Next.
Options
Destination Attributes: Name = short hostname, Folder = ecs
Data to copy: Click "Advanced...", then "Target Layout...".
Set all large, non-swap filesystems to "Thin provisioning" (this is "Dynamic disks" in Microsoft speak, where only the disk space in use is actually allocated on disk, used disk space expands as necessary to hold the data, up to the maximum set by the size of the filesystem).
Set the Size of the normal large filesystems (eg. "/") to a reasonable number, no point in making them huge, most will fit in 40Gbytes.
Switch to the "Source Volumes" tab to see how much space is actually in use at the moment.
Normally set / to thin provisioning, 40GBytes, leave /boot and swap alone.
Devices: Numer of processors = 1.
Disk controller = SCSI LSI Logic or SCSI Buslogic.
Memory = usually the default will be fine.
Networks: Network adapters to connect = 1
Set the network for the network adapter to be the same Virtual Machine Network VLAN as the physical machine you are converting.
The new virtual machine will take over the IP address of the physical source machine.
Advanced Options: Power on target machine = yes
Power off source machine = yes
Reconfigure destination virtual machine = yes
Helper VM Network: Look up the IP address of the host "ecsvm-
Next.
It should now just show you the final option settings and then start the process of converting the host. Wait for the whole process to finish before touching either the source (physical) or destination (virtual) machines.
How long it takes depends on the quantity of data that has to be moved. You can expect about 20 to 25 MBytes/second conversion speed. A machine with about 7GB of used disk takes about 25 minutes to convert.
As the process is run by the Converter Server (running on ecsvm-admin), it doesn't matter if you quit the Windows app used to watch the process, you can track the progress of the conversion from the Converter Windows app running on any PC.
Open a console on the new VM.
In the "VM/Guest" menu, install the VM tools.
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
cd /tmp
tar xzf /mnt/VM*
umount /mnt
cd vmware*
./vmware-tools-install.pl
Accept all the defaults. It will find suitable modules for your kernel, or else will compile them itself, and build a new initrd, grub.conf and modprobe.conf for your kernel.
Assuming that succeeded, then
shutdown -h now
Once the VM has stopped, edit the settings of the VM and choose the middle "Options" tab. In the "VMware Tools" settings, right at the bottom right of the dialog there is an option to "Synchronize guest time with host". Tick this box.
Okay that, then power on the VM.
It should successfully boot.
The only remaining tasks are to enable and start up the user services, but not ntpd.
chkconfig mysqld on
chkconfig httpd on
service mysqld start
service httpd start
The VM should now be fully running happily and serving its services to the users. If you prefer, you can always reboot the VM again instead of running those last two "service ... start" commands to prove it is all okay and booting correctly.
Now just remove the two temporary firewall rules you added at the start of this process.