Steps to convert from hyper-v guest to vmware guest

• Remove hyper-v integrated services while hyper-v guest is running. (if possible)
• Note down NIC networking details first
• Clean shutdown hyper-v guest
• Use StarWind Converter (free) to convert VHD to “dynamically growing VMware” image and use “IDE” as type. Note “SCSI” does NOT work if you have not got the LSI / BUS drivers in the source image, just use the default options – dynamic vmware and IDE.
• Create VMware guest shell (virtual machine equivalent to hyper-v specs but without the disks) – remove all hard drives, iscsi controller should also disappear.
• Upload the VMDK to same data store as virtual machine and attach to the virtual guest in the right order. They should be detected as “IDE”
• Start new vmware guest
• If you could not remove integrated services (i.e. hot clone), then you MUST disable hyper-v services immediately.
• Install vmware tools – reboot
• Remove hidden NIC and other orphaned devices, and reconfigure network card as per original.
• Windows may need to be re-activated – do this.

Note : converting a machine to use an IDE controller will limit its performance!

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http://download3.vmware.com/vdcos/demos/DVS_Demo_800×600.html

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I’ve just started getting into OpenSolaris for many reasons (Sun has some cool stuff – ZFS / VirtualBox). But I have always wanted to run OpenSolaris as a headless server, and from what i initially found VirtualBox didn’t have the easy to use autostart on boot features that vmware server had. But there are always ways to get things working…

OpenSolaris 2008.11 has desktop sharing (system->preferences->desktop sharing) which is half of the job — enable this.

I had issues if i used a password protected session (it kept prompting on the actual console for password to unlock the key chain), so chose not to prompt for password for now. Now every time after you have logged in you are able to connect to your machine via VNC. (veno-server)

The other half of the problem is how to have the machine automatically log on as a user on boot-up. This is easily enabled via /etc/x11/gdm/custom.conf or gdmadmin. See this post for more details on the autologon.

Updated : 26/07/2009

After a bit of playing about I’ve found another way to make opensolaris the perfect headless box. First fire up gdmsetup and enable the required remote sessions.

Go to the “Remote” tab and set the style to “same as local”, then under security ensure that “Deny TCP connections to Xserver” is not checked.

Next go into the services GUI and tick the box next to X server (x11/xvnc-inetd). Next type;

svcs | grep vnc

Disable all vnc services except the one we want to enable (below);

svcadm enable xvnc-inetd

Now to get the vnc session to remain open when you disconnect update the service with the following parameter change;

svccfg -s xvnc-inetd setprop inetd/wait = boolean: true

Reboot. Done.

You should upon reboot be able to vnc straight into the box with a session that wont reset on disconnect.

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First step is to open package manager and find the “vitalization” grouping. Install everything in this group. You’ll probably find some packages are already installed.

Next you’ll need to add the xvm kernel to the grub startup menu (menu.1st). This bit is a bit of blind faith from my perspective – its a shame that the xvm kernel package doesn’t add itself to grub? Anyhow… You need to add the following as another boot option in the /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst file;

title OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86 xVM
bootfs rpool/ROOT/opensolaris
kernel$ /boot/$ISADIR/xen.gz
module$ /platform/i86xpv/kernel/$ISADIR/unix /platform/i86xpv/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B $ZFS-BOOTFS

After a bit more reading you can apparently run bootadm -m upgrade to automatically ad the new kernel to the boot menu. But there might be some issues with on-boot? Some good info on this page : http://trevoro.ca/blog/2008/05/07/getting-xvm-to-work-in-opensolaris-200805/

…added the xVM entry automatically after performing the linkage steps. You will still need to add the ‘bootfs rpool/ROOT/opensolaris lines however.

Update : i have not implemented this yet – i’m currently happy with the stable file / virtual box server that i’m using at the moment. Its also a little early to check out this tech, as there is a lot of work being done at http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/xen/ that is near completion.

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If you are lucky enough to have access to VMware Infrastructure Client 2.5 you can connect via it using the following syntax at the logon screen;

IP address / Name : http://192.168.9.100

If you enter a URL in the host field, use your root and correct password you should be able to logon without issue. Welcome to a nice fast GUI admin console.

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What should I do after I successfully convert my virtual machine?

If you change from a multi-processor system to a uni-processor system you need to manually change the HAL on the Windows server after the conversion. To do this go into Device Manager after the machine first boots and discovers it’s new hardware and then click on Computer then right-click on the processor and select Update Driver. Then select Install from specific location and then Don’t search I will choose the driver to install. Then select show All compatible hardware and select the appropriate processor. For example, if you went from a dual cpu to a single cpu then select ACPI uni-processor PC instead of ACPI multi-processor PC. You will need to reboot once you change this. To verify what HAL you are using you right-click your hal.dll in c:\windows\system32 and select the Version tab and select Internal Name and it should say halmacpi.dll for multi-processor acpi and halacpi.dll for uni-processor acpi.

Next clean up all the non-present hardware after the P2V conversion. To do this go to a CMD prompt and type;

SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 

DEVMGMT.MSC

then select Show Hidden Devices. Delete any old grayed out hardware. Next remove any vendor specific applications/drivers. For example on a HP server you should go to Add/Remove programs and remove any HP management agents, survey utility, array config utility, version control agent, etc. Also check your NIC and make sure there are no vendor specific drivers there (ie. teaming). Check the Services to see if all there is anything vendor specific related there and disable any services that are.

• Agent Installation Location
  • Locally: Install Converter and agent directly on source machine if converting directly into ESX Server
  • Remotely: Connect to source machine over network to install agent
• Agent Installation
  • Use local administrator account
  • Avoid domain accounts that have restrictive policies
  • Allow reboot for Windows NT 4.0 and 2000 sources 
• Machine Preparation
  • Do not deactivate services or harden security
  > Workstation service
  > Server service
  > TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service
  > Volume Shadow Copy service (Windows 2003 or XP)
  • Ensure sufficient free disk space (at least 200MB)
  • Mirrored or striped volumes across multiple disks should be broken
  • Dynamic disks with utility partitions should use cold cloning
  • Disable Windows Simple File Sharing (Windows XP only)
  • Disable anti-virus software
  • Defrag hard disks
  • Shutdown any un-needed Windows Services
  • Clean-up any temporary files and un-needed data
  • Run chkdsk
  • Keep users off if possible
  • Power off VM if not using hot cloning
  • VCB VM exports need editing prior to import
  > Edit virtual disk filenames inside .vmx
  > Rename filenames for .vmdk files to match those listed in .vmx
  > Edit index .vmdk file to change references to span files
• Network Preparation
  • Open TCP/UDP ports 139, 445, and 902 (Converter 3.0.0) or 443 (Converter 3.0.1)
  • Open network ports between source and destination
  > Alternative is to create a VM visible to source, copy VM files to location visible to destination, and import VM
  • Use FQDN to connect to both source and VI3
• Converter Preparation
  • Run on OS greater than or equal to source if source is
  > VM and powered off, or
  > Symantec Livestate System Image
• Cloning
  • Starter edition limitations and workarounds
  > Cannot remote hot clone directly into VI3
  - Workaround 1: install Converter on source machine
  - Workaround 2: select standalone VM as destination, and then import VM to VI3 using two steps
  > Cannot run multiple tasks concurrently
  - Workaround: run multiple copies of Converter
  > Cannot cold clone
  - Workaround: create new VM, use third-party cloning application such as Ghost, and run Converter configure
  • Do not resize volume for fastest clone speed (block-level copying)
  • Resize volumes if source disks have inefficient utilization (resorts to file-level copying)
  • Use cold-cloning disk-based cloning (not volume-based) for non-Windows systems
  • Use hot cloning for Windows NT 4.0 systems to avoid NTFS upgrade
  • Destination needs to be writeable
• Configure
  • Avoid cloning utility partitions
  • Check partition numbers in boot.ini
  • Automatic “Install VMware Tools” option is only available for ESX Server VMs
• Clean-Up Prior to Power On
  • Edit VM settings according to desired goal
  > Number of vCPUs
  > Add/Delete USB devices
  > Add/Delete Serial and parallel devices
  > Remove Floppy drive if not needed
  > SCSI controller type (BusLogic vs. LSI Logic)
  • OEM source may require license activation
  > SMBIOS.reflectHost = “TRUE” in .vmx may avoid reactivation
  > Requires destination host to have same hardware
• Clean-Up After Power On
  • Detect hardware
  > VMware Tools installation may hang if hardware not detected
  • Allow reboots to occur
  > Detect hardware and VMware Tools installation
  • Verify HAL and change if necessary
  • Remove non-present old hardware
  > CMD prompt type set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
  > Next type DEVMGMT.MSC and select Show Hidden Devices
  > Delete any old grayed out non-present hardware
• Guest Troubleshooting
  • Blue screen after powering on
  > Start Windows in Safe Mode and uninstall hardware-specific applications or services
  > Attach VM to “Helper VM” to remove hardware-specific drivers or to correct the boot.ini
  • No keyboard/mouse
  > Select Workstation/Server VM instead of ESX Server, then import VM to ESX Server
  > Use PS/2 keyboard/mouse on source
  • Display problems
  > Uninstall PC Anywhere prior to installing VMware Tools

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• Always use only 1 Virtual CPU – i have found that most times even if you have heaps of cores to spare on the host, a single virtual core is faster.
• Set the memory to the recommended level when possible – 256Mb sounds shit when you have 4gb, doesn’t matter – set it to 256Mb (increase only if excessive paging on the guest). Let linux and vmware manage the memory, in most cases it does a much better job than windows. Do not disable memory page trimming on any of the guests, this gives more memory back to the host to cache other more important activity (disk etc)
• Never use 2gb split files for the virtual disk unless you have to transfer the vm onto a file system that doesn’t support larger files.
• Load the latest drivers for your NIC on the host
• Be nice to your physical disk – do not load all your VM’s on a single drive – the HDD is the slowest part of the system, dont saturate it. I use either a raid 0 running multiple vm’s (with backups) or dedicated drives per set of vm’s. This excludes enterprise level raids which can handle much higher level of simultaneous requests.
• Install vmware tools on all guest machines

watch your pings – ping your guests… they should never loose a ping. If they do you are loading the cpu to high and the host cannot process the network queries. As above use only one virtual cpu. Also ensure you have the latest network driver loaded for your NIC on the host.

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http://www.vyatta.com/products/virtualized.php

Oh – its open source and free!

I’m a bit lazy in most cases and just add a few virtual nics into my VM’s and do the routing though them. But some people may find this handy for a single point to manage networking.

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