
a server migration, be sure to select “I moved it” when the destination hypervisor asks during first start up of the newly copied virtual machine. If you intend to use just your destination virtual machine, and never start up the source virtual machine again, i.e. Once the virtual machine copy is complete, you can go to the destination server, register the virtual machine files, and boot up the VM. This happens automatically so you do not need to babysit the copy process.

Every so often the SSH connection will renegotiate the connection. You can watch the virtual machines copy process on the SSH client. Scp -v -c aes128-ctr -r * the syntax is correct, the SSH client will now prompt for the destination server’s root password. Navigate your SSH client to the source virtual machine directory.Ĭhange datastore1 to machine the name of your source VMFS device, and VMNAME to the name of the virtual machine you’d like to copy. A connection to the destination hypervisor is not needed, however SSH needs to be enabled and running on both servers. I opened up my trusted Putty installation.Ĭonnected to the source hypervisor. You don’t want them running during the copy, as this will most definitely make your destination copies corrupt. Make sure the virtual machines on the source hypervisor are now powered off. The next step, on the destination hypervisor, create the necessary root folders in the VMFS store you want to copy the virtual machines to. I was trying to utilize as much bandwidth as possible, which did work… but the RAID card became my bottleneck. You do not need to setup a special NIC for a direct SSH transfer. I did not remove the management network from the NICs that were still connected to the primary network, as I would need to access the servers from my workstation. I setup some virtual switches on each and gave them static IPs in the same subnet. So, lets copy the virtual machines directly via SSH!įirst, I took an ethernet cable and used an used NIC interface on both servers to make a direct connection. Enable SSH on the ESXi machine In the vSphere client go to: Configuration -> Security profile -> Properties (next to Services) -> SSH (in the list) -> Options -> Start Log in via SSH as root Prepare a directory on the destination datastore mkdir '/vmfs/volumes/destinationdatastore/Some VM' Clone the. 20k 8 8 gold badges 52 52 silver badges 79 79 bronze badges. Watching the virtual machine copy is like watching grass grow, and I didn’t want to use the rest of my life to do it twice. Shutdown the VM Connect to the source host via ssh Copy the VM with scp to the target host Register the VM on the target host Start the VM on the target host Delete the VM on the source host Share. Now, copying almost a terabyte sized virtual machine from 5.1 to a NFS storage folder, and then have to copy the virtual machine again from the NFS storage folder to 6.7 would take absolutely forever. The ESXi version 6.7 server would not mount the 5.1 version VMFS drive. For some reason, my go-to method wouldn’t work. There are a couple ways to do this, some ways harder than others.
ESXI SSH COPY VIRTUAL MACHINE INSTALL
Repeat step 2 and validate that the virtual machine is no longer running.The other day I needed to transfer large virtual machines from a VMware ESXi 5.1 install to a 6.7. If you select the PMem mode, all virtual disks are stored on the host-local PMem datastore.

If you select the Standard mode, all virtual disks are stored on a standard datastore. So the forst step is to enable the SSH client in the firewall: Once you have. Even if you have turned on the ESXi shell you will discover taht a simple copy operation is not possible because the firewall blocks outgoing connections on port 22. Soft is the most graceful, hard performs an immediate shutdown, and force should be used as a last resort. Option Action Clone a virtual machine that has vPMem hard disks: Select the type of storage for the template by clicking the Standard, the PMem, or the Hybrid radio button. The most obvious solution is to copy the data via SCP from one machine to another.

Note: Three power-off methods are available. Power off one of the virtual machines from the list using the command: esxcli vm process kill -type= -world-id=WorldNumber vmx configuration file, using the command: esxcli vm process list Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name and path to the. Open a console session where the esxcli tool is available, either in the ESXi Shell, the vSphere Management Assistant (vMA), or the location where the vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI) is installed.
ESXI SSH COPY VIRTUAL MACHINE HOW TO
For more information, see the esxcli vm Commands section of the vSphere Command-Line Interface Reference. How to enable SSH on the VM host: Select the ESXi host Select the Configuration tab Select Security Profile under Software Click Properties Select Remote.

The esxcli command can be used locally or remotely to power off a virtual machine running on ESXi 5.0. From the section 'Using the ESXi 5.0 esxcli command to power off a virtual machine' in KB1014165 at the VMWare Knowledge base:
