Conversion of Virtual Environments - VMWare to Proxmox

This chapter provides a guide for converting the VM Ware based VM's to a ProxmoxVE.

For a properly working Proxmox VE some configurations of the VMWare based VM Templates are necessary. Follow the instructions below to migrate the VM's based on the operating system used.

Windows Systems

  1. Copy the VM.
  2. Execute the specific configuration steps on the VM:
    • Uninstall the VMWare Tools.
    • Install the Virtio Drivers and Tools.
    • Manually delete VMware Tools installation files found in these locations.
      Note:
      Select the appropriate user and username on the machine in the path.
      • C:\Program Files\VMware
      • C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware
      • C:\Program Data\VMware
      • C:\<users>\<username>\App data\VMware
    • Start Regedit with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\.
    • Delete all VMware related drivers including vmci, vm3dmp, vmaudio, vmhgfs, vmmemctl, vmmouse, VMRawDisk, VMTools, vmusbmouse, vmvss, vmware physical disk helper services and any VMwareCAF*.
    • Delete VMware.Inc from Regedit in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware.Inc.
    • Delete the same driver under C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\.
    • Remove the VMware SVGA driver from Device Manager.
    • Delete all vm3d*.* files under C:\Windows\System32\.
    • Install the latest virtio drivers & tools (it also installs the QEMU guest agent and the Spice tools and drivers) from Virtio.
  3. Shutdown the VM and Export the VM in vCenter (via right click on Template > Export OFV Template).
  4. Copy the OFV template to the Proxmox Datastore.
  5. Import the OFV template, eg: qm importovf 100 /mnt/USB/PVE-OL9WINCCOA/PVE-OL9WINCCOA.ovf san1.
  6. Change the hardware to:
    • CPU: x86-64-v2-AES (Linux) kvm64 (Windows)
    • BIOS: OVMF (UEFI)
    • Display: Spice (qxl)
    • Machine: pc-q35 (latest)
    • SCSI Controller: VirtIO SCSI single
    • Network device: VirtIO (paravirtualized), disable Firewall
    • Harddisk: Enable IO thread, Async IO: native
    • Add EFI disk.
    • Add TPM module.
  7. Under Options enable QEMU Guest Agent.
  8. Startup the VM.

Linux Systems

  1. Copy the VM.
  2. Execute the specific configuration steps on the VM:
    • Uninstall open-vm-tools:
      • Debian: sudo apt puge open-vm-tools.
      • RHEL: yum remove open-vm-tools.
    • Install qemu:
      • Debian: apt-get install qemu-guest-agent.
      • RHEL: yum install qemu-guest-agent.
    • Execute systemctl enable qemu-guest-agent.
    • Execute systemctl start qemu-guest-agent.
    • Execute dracut --force --add-drivers "virtio_balloon virtio_scsi virtio_console virtio_net virtio_pci".
  3. Shutdown the VM and Export the VM in vCenter (via right click on Template > Export OFV Template).
  4. Copy the OFV template to the Proxmox Datastore.
  5. Import the OFV template, eg: qm importovf 100 /mnt/USB/PVE-OL9WINCCOA/PVE-OL9WINCCOA.ovf san1.
  6. Change the hardware to:
    • CPU: x86-64-v2-AES (Linux) kvm64 (Windows)
    • BIOS: OVMF (UEFI)
    • Display: Spice (qxl)
    • Machine: pc-q35 (latest)
    • SCSI Controller: VirtIO SCSI single
    • Network device: VirtIO (paravirtualized), disable Firewall
    • Harddisk: Enable IO thread, Async IO: native
    • Add EFI disk.
    • Add TPM module.
  7. Under Options enable QEMU Guest Agent.
  8. Startup the VM.