Migrating a ESXi VM to Proxmox VE

The following section contains information on how to migrate VMWare/ESXi VMs to a Proxmox Virtual Environment

Requirements #

• A CIFS/SMB or any sort of Shared Storage to dump VM Exports.
• (Optionally) OVFTool → Download Link from VMWare’s Site
• A bit of patience (For Windows VMs)
• Access to the VM you will migrate, to remove drivers.

Generic Instructions #

In VMware ESXi navigate to your virtual machine in the tree on the left. Choose Actions → Export.

This will download disk images and information about your virtual machine in the .ovf format in the browser. Move those files to a storage that is accessible by your Proxmox VE host.

Section Sourced directly from Proxmox Wiki.

OVFTool Instructions #

If OVFTool is installed on your host, remove any attached disk or ISO from your VM and run:

ovftool vi://root@${ip_of_esxi}/${virtual_machine_name} .

This will export a VM directly to your current directory as an OVA Archive.

You may replace the final dot in the command with any valid path, such as /mnt/pve/<storage> or /opt.

Extracting an OVA Archive #

Extracting an OVA Archive on Linux is simple, this command will extract it to your current directory.

tar xvf "${archive_name}.ova"

Windows VMs #

To migrate a Windows VM from ESXi you’ll need to follow the next steps:

1. Boot in Normal Mode.

2. Uninstall any VMWare or ESXi drivers the VM might have.

3. Download the Mergeide registry edit file (https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/File:Mergeide.zip) from the Proxmox Wiki to ensure IDE Storage Drivers are Enabled.

4. Re-check for any remaining Drivers or Services that may remain.

5. Export to OVF/VMDK to your CIFS/SMB Storage

6. Import from Proxmox with the following commands, first the metadata, then the disks:

qm importovf $vm_id $file_name $target_storage
qm importdisk $vm_id $file_name $target_storage

7. Add your unused disk to the VM.

8. Set the BIOS to UEFI

qm set $vm_id --bios ovmf

9. Set the Disk Interface to SATA

sed -i 's/scsi0:/sata0:/' /etc/pve/qemu-server/$vm_id.conf

10. Test Boot!

Linux Based VMs #

With Linux VMs it’s much simpler to migrate them.

1. Remove any drivers you might have installed through the CLI

2. Export the VM to your SMB/CIFS Storage

3. Import from Proxmox with the following commands, first the metadata, then the disks:

qm importovf $vm_id $file_name $target_storage
qm importdisk $vm_id $file_name $target_storage

4. Add your unused disk to the VM and Test boot

Done!