Tag Archives: AHV

P2V Windows to AHV using Disk2VHD

October 3, 2018 Josh Sinclair Leave a comment

Generally a better idea to build virtual machines from scratch when doing a migration to the datacenter. However, in some scenarios it might make sense to P2V a machine. This includes if you need to preserve the exact configuration of an existing machine, or if you don’t have the installation media for programs that are installed on that machine.

Before you begin the P2V process, you need to install the Nutanix VirtIO drivers for the virtual hardware that will be presented to the VM.

Login to the Nutanix support portal, click Downloads, Tools & Firmware, and search for “virtio” to find the drivers. Download the appropriate .MSI for your version of Windows.

Double click the .msi to install it, and just click next and accept all the defaults.

Microsoft has a tool called Disk2vhd that you can download for free to accomplish P2V migrations.

Download disk2vhd from Microsoft

Disk2vhd is a simple .exe file. Double click on the .exe to run it.

If you want the .vhd file to be bootable you need to select the System volume as well as C:\

I recommend saving the .vhd to a volume other than C:\ such as a usb key, or network mounted drive.

If the .VHD is relatively small, you can upload it through the PRISM Image Configuration Service.

However, if it is fairly large the browser will probably timeout before the .VHD completes the upload.

The Image Configuration Service will also upload a file from a http source. You can easily create a http server using Microsoft IIS. In Windows Features, click the following options to install the IIS role:

Open IIS Manager, right click Default Web Site, and click Add Virtual Directory.

You will also need to add .VHD as a MIME type to be able to download the file.

You can then browse to the folder via HTTP, right click the file link, and copy the link to the Image Configuration Service.

After the Image create tasks reaches 100% you can create a VM with the uploaded vdisk.

When adding a new disk to the VM, select:
Operation: Clone from Image Service
Bus Type: SCSI

Power on the VM and enjoy your success.

Booting from UEFI partions:

If the machine you imaged is booting from a UEFI boot partition the VM will be stuck with the message: Booting from Hard Disk…

To enable UEFI booting:

SSH to a CVM
run acli
vm.update [vm name] uefi_boot=true

Power off the VM and power it back on. Happy UEFI booting!

AHV, Nutanix

Export an ISO from the Image Service on Nutanix AHV

February 16, 2017 Josh Sinclair Leave a comment

Nutanix AHV has an image service built into PRISM that lets you upload ISO files and connect them to VMs. Currently there is no export for the image service built into PRISM.

However, it is not hard to export this ISO if you need to.

Step 1: Find the vmdisk_uuid for the Image

Log into a CVM and go into acli.

List the images using: image.list

Get the details for the image using image.get [Image Name].
Example: image.get Windows10

Note the vmdisk_uuid.

Step 2: Use a SCP tool to copy the vmDisk

Use a SCP tool like WinSCP to log into the CVM. You need to log in with a PRISM user/pass to port 2222. In this example I use the default login “admin”.

The .acropolis folder is hidden so use the open folder button to browse to the .acropolis/vmdisk folder.

Right click on the UUID and select download.

Type in a name for the iso. In this example I name it Windows10.iso

Nutanix

Export a VM from Nutanix AHV to VMware ESXi

February 4, 2017 Josh Sinclair 1 Comment

In this example I export a CentOS 7 template from AHV to ESXi. There are a couple of ways to accomplish this task, depending on whether you need a thin provisioned file or a thick provisioned file.

Thin Provisioned

Step 1: Find UUID of the vDisk.

Connect to a CVM, enter aCLI and run the command vm.get [vm name]

Copy the vmdisk_uuid. (Notice the size of the VM under the STORAGE column in PRISM, that should be the size of the exported file… assuming the VM only has 1 vdisk)

Step 2: Export the vDisk

vDisks of AHV VMs are located in a hidden folder on the container named .acropolis. We use the qemu-img command to export the vDisk. The vdisk is exported in a thin format and should match the size of the VM in PRISM. If the disk is large then the command might take longer to complete than the timeout value of the SSH session. In order to not have the conversion corrupted by the SSH session timing out either use keep alives or run the task in the background by using a ‘&’ at the end of the command. In this example I will run the task in the background.

Make sure the VM is powered off, then run the following command:

qemu-img convert –O vmdk nfs://127.0.0.1/[container]/.acropolis/vmdisk/[UUID] nfs://127.0.0.1/[container]/[vmdisk].vmdk &

Example:
qemu-img convert -O vmdk nfs://127.0.0.1/Nutanix/.acropolis/vmdisk/fea6b382-43ec-4236-b521-edac7ac923cb nfs://127.0.0.1/Nutanix/CentOS_7.vmdk &

We can check that the task is still running using the command PS –A | grep qemu. When the command returns nothing we know it has completed.

Step 3: Copy the vDisk

Once the export completes, you can now whitelist a Windows 2012 R2 server and simply browse to the container and copy the vDisk. Alternatively you can also use a SCP tool by connecting with admin@[host]:2222.

Step 4. Create a new Virtual Machine and Upload the VMDK to ESXi.

Here I create a new VM with no virtual disk, because I am going to upload the VMDK to the VM’s folder.

Use a SCP tool to connect to ESXi and upload the VMDK to the VM’s folder.

Step 5: Use vmkfstools to create the vmdk disk descriptor.

ESXi expects vmdks to have a disk descriptor file that points to the raw vmdk file. We can use vmkfstools to create that using the following command:

vmkfstools –i [sourceVMDK] [destinationVMDK] –d thin
Example:
vmkfstools –i CentOS_7.vmdk CentOS7.vmdk –d thin
Once the disk descriptor is created you can delete the original file.

Step 6: Attach the VMDK to the VM and power it on

Thick Provisioned

Exporting a thick provisioned disk is similar to the process above, except we don’t need to use qemu. We can just SCP the disk from the .acropolis directory.

Step 1: Find UUID of the vDisk.

Connect to a CVM, enter aCLI and run the command vm.get [vm name]

Copy the vmdisk_uuid. (Notice the size of the VM under the STORAGE column in PRISM, that should be the size of the exported file… assuming the VM only has 1 vdisk)

Step 2: SCP the vdisk from the .acropolis/vmdisk directory.

Use a SCP tool to connect to the Nutanix CVM. If you use WINSCP you will have to use the Open Directory button (CTRL+O) to open the hidden .acropolis/vmdisk directory.

Copy the vDisk that matches the UUID from vm.get. Then copy the file to ESXi.

Step 3. Create a new Virtual Machine and Upload the VMDK to ESXi.

Here I create a new VM with no virtual disk, because I am going to upload the VMDK to the VM’s folder.

Use a SCP tool to connect to ESXi and upload the VMDK to the VM’s folder.

Step 4: Use vmkfstools to create a VMDK descriptor file, then replace the flat file with the exported vDisk.

Following the process in VMware KB 1002511 we recreate a vDisk descriptor file. The file has to be created with the exact same size as the exported vDisk. Use ls –l to check the size of the exported vDisk. Then use the following command to create the vDisk descriptor file:
vmkfstools –c [vDisk size] [destination file] –d thin

Example:
vmkfstools -c 42949672960 CentOS_7.vmdk -d thin

Once the file is created then replace the –flat.vmdk file with the exported vDisk.
Example:
mv fea6b382-43ec-4236-b521-edac7ac923cb CentOS_7-flat.vmdk

Step 5: Attach the VMDK to the VM and power it on

Nutanix

Export a VM from AHV raw format to VMware VMDK

January 10, 2017 Josh Sinclair Leave a comment

In this example I’m going to export my Windows 2012 R2 template from AHV to ESXi.

Step 1: Find UUID of the vDisk.

Connect to a CVM, enter aCLI and run the command vm.get [vm name]

Copy the vmdisk_uuid. (Notice the size of the VM under the STORAGE column in PRISM, that should be the size of the exported file… assuming the VM only has 1 vdisk)

Step 2: Export the vDisk

Make sure the VM is powered off, then run the following command:

qemu-img convert –O vmdk nfs://127.0.0.1/[container]/.acropolis/vmdisk/[UUID] nfs://127.0.0.1/[container]/[vmdisk].vmdk

Example:
qemu-img convert -O vmdk nfs://127.0.0.1/Nutanix/.acropolis/vmdisk/838950be-d0d8-4132-bf8f-e02411807cf2 nfs://127.0.0.1/Nutanix/win2012r2.vmdk

Step 3: Copy the vDisk

Once the export completes, you can now whitelist a Windows 2012 R2 server and simply browse to the container and copy the vDisk and import it into ESXi. Alternatively you could just mount the container as NFS on the ESXi host and storage vMotion it to another datastore.

Step 4. Create a VM with the new vdisk and power it on. Remember to install VMware Tools.

Nutanix

Export a VM on AHV

October 11, 2016 Josh Sinclair 3 Comments

Step 1: Find UUID of the vDisk.

Connect to a CVM, enter aCLI and run the command vm.get [vm name]

Copy the vmdisk_uuid.

Step 2: Export the vDisk

vDisks of AHV VMs are located in a hidden folder on the container named .acropolis. We use the qemu-img command to export the vDisk. One cool thing is that the vDisk is exported in a thin format, so even if it is provisioned as a 100GB drive, it will only export the actual size used.

Make sure the VM is powered off, then run the following command:

qemu-img convert –c nfs://127.0.0.1/[container]/.acropolis/vmdisk/[UUID] –O qcow2 nfs://127.0.0.1/[container]/[vmdisk].qcow2

Example:
qemu-img convert -c nfs://127.0.0.1/Nutanix/.acropolis/vmdisk/5c0996b9-f114-475f-98c0-ea4d09e8e447 -O qcow2 nfs://127.0.0.1/Nutanix/export_me.qcow2

Step 3: Copy the vDisk

Once the export completes, you can now whitelist a Windows 2012 R2 server and simply browse to the container and copy the vDisk.

Booting from UEFI partions:

Step 1: Find the vmdisk_uuid for the Image

Step 2: Use a SCP tool to copy the vmDisk

Thin Provisioned

Step 1: Find UUID of the vDisk.

Step 2: Export the vDisk

Step 3: Copy the vDisk

Step 4. Create a new Virtual Machine and Upload the VMDK to ESXi.

Step 5: Use vmkfstools to create the vmdk disk descriptor.

Step 6: Attach the VMDK to the VM and power it on

Thick Provisioned

Step 1: Find UUID of the vDisk.

Step 2: SCP the vdisk from the .acropolis/vmdisk directory.

Step 3. Create a new Virtual Machine and Upload the VMDK to ESXi.

Step 4: Use vmkfstools to create a VMDK descriptor file, then replace the flat file with the exported vDisk.

Step 5: Attach the VMDK to the VM and power it on

Technologist