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I have attempted to export a vm in ESXi which produced 3 files:

  1. vm_name.ovf (12KB)
  2. disk-0-2.vmdk (73KB)
  3. disk-1.vmdk (1.2GB)

I assumed the larger file (disk-1.vmdk) was the flat file and therefore uploaded that to an appropriate folder where I am running EVE-ng within an Ubuntu KVM environment.

I successfully converted the disk-1.vmdk file using qemu-img command and it boots up ok in EVE-ng, however it does not preserve the state/settings of the vm that was operating in ESXi - Am I doing something wrong like exporting or converting the wrong file?

Does just converting the larger vmdk file contain all the info it needs?

In particular it screws the licensing up of the old vm when converting to qcow2 perhaps because it says the digital signature has changed? (the instance is an F5 BIGIP vm) - I cannot reuse the licenses on another vm - Is there anything I can do to preserve the original vm for this migration between environments?

MattE
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2 Answers2

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Am I doing something wrong like exporting or converting the wrong file?

You're literally only converting the virtual disk file, not the VM description file - for a VMware VM that data is in a .vmk file, once exported it's in the .ovf file - no idea if there's a converter for you but it's usually readable text.

Chopper3
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The BIG-IP license will "become" invalid because the software detected a hardware signature change and it no longer matches is initial dossier state when it was created (system hash for a deployed instance). This is on purpose due to it's nature as a security device.

However, you CAN call F5 support and get the license released so you can relicense the system. I do this on occasion for my dev lab BIG-IP license when I move it around virtual states. As long as it's a valid system serial & license, it's not an issue.

Chase
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