Comments on: Convert VMware .vmdk to KVM .qcow2 or Virtualbox .vdi

By: David van Enckevort

David van Enckevort — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:49:29 +0000

You can directly convert files to VDI now, just specify -O vdi.

By: A valid boot sector was not found when tryin to start converted VMs

A valid boot sector was not found when tryin to start converted VMs — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:07:08 +0000

[...] See this page maybe. http://blog.bodhizazen.net/linux/con…irtualbox-vdi/ [...]

By: Vincent

Vincent — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 13:07:01 +0000

Tried but no luck! (this method may not work for those old vmware server image ) I am using quite a old school vmware server ( version 1.06). After many attempts, I finally worked out a solution, hope this might be useful for some people:
What I’ve done:

ON VMWARE SERVER
- On my Old Vmwre server, setup an linux guest machine ( the hard disk must be bigger than the vmare you’re trying to convert ), add the vmware hard disk to this quest machine as secondary hard dish ( /dev/sdb)
- Boot up the machine, run fdisk -l, you should be able to see 2 hard disk /dev/sda and /dev/sdb
- Run dd if=/dev/sdb of=sdb-image-dump.raw
- Once finished, scp the image to your network share drive.

ON KVM SERVER
- On the KVM-QEMU Host machine, setup a linux guest machine, also add a secondary hard disk ( make sure the disk size is identical to your VMware hard disk)
- Boot up your guest machine on the KVM. (once booted, the server should have /dev/sda and /dev/sdb drive )
- SCP the dumped image to KVM’s guest machine.
- Run dd if=sdb-image-dump.raw of=/dev/sdb
- Once is done, shutdown the KVM guest machine.
- Now, you can go to the /var/lib/libvirt/image forlder to have your KVM image file.
- Use the image file to import to your new KVM machine.

- Bingo!!! it works!!!

By: Antonio Cosenza

Antonio Cosenza — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:52:25 +0000

well,
i think one of the most secure method to import Linux guests from different virtualization platform is to use rsync! By the way, Rsync is not the perfect way to convert from phisical to virtual??!! ;-) I converted and imported lots of virtual machines this way!

Windows? nothing to say….

By: Connor

Connor — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:06:15 +0000

Dude, ur awesome!!! Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Ubuntu 11.04にKVMを導入する | 記録用手帳

Ubuntu 11.04にKVMを導入する | 記録用手帳 — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 14:44:22 +0000

[...] Convert VMware .vmdk to KVM .qcow2 or Virtualbox .vdi | Shadows of epiphany [...]

By: A. Schuppisser

A. Schuppisser — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:37:49 +0000

Aeh, I meant: “qemu-img convert /mnt/flat -O qcow2 yyy.vmdk

By: A. Schuppisser

A. Schuppisser — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:36:43 +0000

You can also use the tool vmware-mount comming with the free VMWare-Player to convert any vmdk-File (even in the form of 2GB-splittet) directly to a qcow2 file:
> vmware -f xxx.vmdk /mnt # Mount vmdk as a raw device-Image -> /mnt/flat
> qemu-img convert /mnt/flat -O qcow2 /mnt/flat
> vmware -d /mnt

Don’t know, if this method is more efficent, but at least you don’t need to install vmware server or vmware converter to do the job.

By: IGnatius T Foobar

IGnatius T Foobar — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:54:15 +0000

Migrating from VMware to KVM has been an easier experience than I thought it would be. qemu-image is quite useful.

By: Migrating CentOS5 VMWare images to KVM | Screwtape's Blog

Migrating CentOS5 VMWare images to KVM | Screwtape's Blog — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:05:06 +0000

[...] recover it, but no, it seems that the open source community has done everything I need. I started here and noted the slightly scary caveat that LVM using images didn’t [...]