Windows 10: Windows VM V2V (Virt to Virt) conversion KVM to and from VMWare

Discus and support Windows VM V2V (Virt to Virt) conversion KVM to and from VMWare in Windows 10 Virtualization to solve the problem; Hi there The easiest way to achieve converting a Windows VM from (or to) KVM / VMWare is to forget about the VMWare's conversion software -- doesn't... Discussion in 'Windows 10 Virtualization' started by jimbo45, Jul 4, 2020.

  1. jimbo45 Win User

    Windows VM V2V (Virt to Virt) conversion KVM to and from VMWare


    Hi there
    The easiest way to achieve converting a Windows VM from (or to) KVM / VMWare is to forget about the VMWare's conversion software -- doesn't really work satisfactorily and takes forever to run is simply to do the following

    a) From KVM to VMWare (or even to a Real machine --then don't install VMWare tools if converting to a real machine).

    1) ensure you have an iso image of Macrium's recovery software .
    2) simply take an image of the windows VM from within the VM via Macrium free or similar.
    3) create a basic VM on Vmware - don't install the OS etc - simply create the virtual hard disk and virtual DVD drive pointing to the iso image of macriums' bootable recovery media.
    4) restore the image
    5) you will certainly then need to "Fix windows boot problems" so boot from the firmware via the VM menu to boot from the iso image.
    6) should be bootable -- now update drivers etc as required and of course install VMWare tools.

    Note if you have vmware player you'll need to add a line each time into the VMWare config file to get the VM to boot into the firmware (i.e setup)

    Another trap for the unwary -- if you want to set the VM as booting via UEFI) and the option is greyed out on VMWare WKS or you are on VMWare player then do it as per my very old post (still valid) here.

    This also shows the addition that VMWare player users can make to get the VM to boot into the firmware (setup) menu -- note also you have to do that each time you want to boot into the firmware when using VMWare player.

    VMWARE create EFI Virtual machine (solved)

    b) from VMWare to KVM


    steps 1) and 2) as above
    3) create your VM via the Virtual machine manager in KVM if using a GUI (can be done with CLI and XML but if you have the GUI use that as it's quite a nice interface and really easy to use). ensure Iso image is added as a CD ROM
    4) restore image
    steps 5) and 6) as above (but you won't need VMWare tools in the VM so no need to install it)

    You'll need to alter the networking for KVM -- to get full network access you will need to set to bridged networking and create a network bridge from a real NIC to the network bridge -- bridge-utils does that. Limitation here is you can't currently do this on a Wireless networking --in that case you'll have to stick with NAT which gives the VM internet access.

    Anyway have fun -- it's much quicker making VM's like this rather than creating from scratch for the different platforms if you want to try out different systems.

    This might also work for Virtual Box (VBOX) too but I haven't installed that. (As the old textbooks used to say "That's left as an exercise for our readers" !!). Could also work for VM's with HYPER-V --I might test the process later.

    Here's result -- Identical Windows 10 (build 331) on VMWare (converted from the KVM one) and QEMU / KVM running on Linux kernel 5.7.7 - You can run KVM Hypervisor and VMWare VM's concurrently BTW).


    Windows VM V2V (Virt to Virt) conversion KVM to and from VMWare [​IMG]


    The only difference was I renamed the VMWare one so as not to have 2 machines with the same netname on the Lan - the Windows machines end in HUNDUR the NAS machines are the other ones.

    The VMWare machine didn't even want / require re-activation.

    Cheers
    jimbo

    :)
     
    jimbo45, Jul 4, 2020
    #1
  2. jimbo45 Win User

    Converting VMWare Windows VM to run on Linux hypervisors

    Hi Virtual Machine user Geeks !!!

    You can convert Windows VMWare VM's to run on KVM or XEN --- these are 2 of the Linux HYPERVISORS equivalent to HYPER-V on Windows.

    For XEN (although KVM these days is the preferred method) :

    If you are using a Linux Host and have Windows VM's running under VMWare here's an interesting little experiment : Get the VM to run under XEN (one of Linux's HYPERVISOR). Copy / backup the VMWARE VM though first.

    1) you need to get the .vdmk files into a single "big" file if you used the option to create the VHD in "chunks".

    run this script : (as root of course)

    # for i in `ls *[0-9].vmdk`; do qemu-img convert -f vmdk $i -O raw ${i/vmdk/raw} ; done
    # cat *.raw >> flattened.img

    2) convert to "raw" using "Good old qemu" -- still working !!!

    # qemu-img convert vm1.vmdk -O raw /vms/vm1/vm1.img

    3) Create an appropriate Xen Project VM configuration file in /etc/xen/vm1/, with a line specifying the converted file as disk:
    disk = [ ‘file:/vms/vm1/vm1.img,hda,w’ ]

    4) Boot and go

    Still got some sound issues but looks good - ensure of course libvirt packages are installed.

    I'll have a go also with the other Linux HYPERVISOR system KVM and see what happens there too.

    I'm really interested in comparing performance of Windows VM's under these with Ms's HYPER-V - although one disadvantage of HYPER-V using a W10 Host is that the overhead of the Host OS (Windows 10) will be much higher than that of a lean mean linux distro especially if you install without a GUI.

    @Kari -- any ideas on maximizing performance of Windows HYPER-V VM's on a Windows Host (preferably W10).

    This stuff is quite addictive so ensure you have plenty of time before starting !!!!!!

    KVM though IMO is the way to go with this but I already had a little experience with XEN.

    For KVM : If you have RHEL or can get the virt-v package : it's easier but can't gurantee that you can do this easily on non Red Hat type distros. I have RHEL7/8 and Centos so no prob here.

    Converting Virtual Machines from Other Hypervisors to KVM with virt-v2v in RHEL 7 - Red Hat Customer Portal

    Works also on CENTOS (make sure >7.2) which is easily available (free) if you can't get RHEL --it's pretywell 100% comaptible with RHEL anyway

    package installs just fine on my CENTOS 7.6 system.


    Windows VM V2V (Virt to Virt) conversion KVM to and from VMWare [​IMG]



    will post results of VM's back later


    Cheers
    jimbo
     
    jimbo45, Jul 4, 2020
    #2
  3. FStech Win User
    How can I manage Virt-Manager from a windows machine without X11 Forwarding?

    I am currently in the middle of a project, and have a machine with CentOS 7 and KVM as my virtualization server.

    Sadly enough, I have to find a way to manage my guests from a Windows 10 machine, and until now, I've been using X11 Forwarding with VcXsrv and PuTTY, but the graphic interface is laggy, and there's just no way to keep the system like this.

    So basically, what I need is to run virt-manager on windows and after long researching, the only thing I found was this thread and the most interesting comment by AndreasT, suggesting CygWin. I do have cygwin installed, and windows 10 bash on ubuntu on windows, but trying to run virt-manager with debug on WSL throws a lot of errors in packages (even having them installed), and i couldn't find anywhere how to use virt-manager on CygWin.

    The idea is to set the manager on Windows, and connect via SSH to the CentOS machine, to manage the guests on KVM.

    Any help is greatly appreciated.
     
    FStech, Jul 4, 2020
    #3
  4. jimbo45 Win User

    Windows VM V2V (Virt to Virt) conversion KVM to and from VMWare

    Windows 10 Insider Preview Fast Build 19536 - December 16 Insider

    Hi there
    I think this current build doesn't seem to play well with VMWare so there might be a small update before then (to VMWare)

    testing install now as a VM with KVM on Linux host to see what happens.

    Complete Installation of KVM, QEMU and Virt Manager on Arch Linux and Manjaro - Computing for Geeks

    Cheers
    jimbo
     
    jimbo45, Jul 4, 2020
    #4
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Windows VM V2V (Virt to Virt) conversion KVM to and from VMWare

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