Need help with migrating a virtual machine from VMware to KVM

[SviridoffA]

Hi everyone! I need to migrate a Windows virtual machine from a remote data center. I initially tried using qemu-img for the conversion because I don’t have direct access to vCenter. Linux VMs migrated from this datacenter, started without any issues, but the Windows VM shows ‘No bootable device’. I pre-installed the virt-io drivers in guest OS beforehand. I’ve tried changing the rootDiskController to ide and scsi, but without success. I also tried running bootrec /rebuildbcd, but that didn’t work either.
I also tried to move virtual machine to my local VMware cluster (not managed by cloudstack), intending to then migrate it to CloudStack using the Import-Export Instances tool. However, when starting the import process, I encounter the error “Cannot find suitable storage pools in the cluster for the conversion.”

I am using:
Ubuntu 24.04
ACS 4.19.2
Primary storage - Linstor
NFS as a secondary storage

I would appreciatу any assistance in resolving this problem.

[sureshanaparti]

Hi @SviridoffA Can you try with NFS as primary storage (and then try migrating the volume to Linstor if it's supported) ?

[rajujith]

@SviridoffA CloudStack's Import tool requires NFS or local primary storage for VMware to KVM migration. Regarding issues starting the VMs converted using qemu-img, could you check whether the boot type needs to be updated to UEFI to match the source VM?

[SviridoffA]

Hi guys! @rajujith and @sureshanaparti Thank you for your replies. As I understand from your replies, the Import tool does not support Linstor. Thank you for that information. To use NFS, it seems I would likely need to deploy another CloudStack cluster; I’ll consider this. Because I dont wont to introduce another primary storage into the current cluster.

Regarding the disk conversion using qemu-img, I haven’t been successful thus far. I’ve attempted to set the VM’s UEFI parameter to LEGACY and SECURE modes, while also experimenting with various controller types (IDE, SCSI, VIRTIO). I’ve also tried set up OS type to Windows PV, but unfortunately, without any success. I’ve also attempted to convert the disk using StarWind, but I’m still encountering the “No bootable device” error.”

[winterhazel]

Regarding the No bootable device error: just making sure, did you configure UEFI support in your KVM hosts? (i.e install ovmf and create /etc/cloudstack/agent/uefi.properties)

[SviridoffA]

It seems I missed this part)))). During the initial cluster deployment, I didn’t take UEFI into account. I’ll try configuring UEFI support on the KVM hosts and try redeploy VM soon. Thank you for pointing that out.

[SviridoffA]

Guys, thank you everyone for your assistance. I successfully migrated the virtual machine. I’m using Ubuntu on the KVM hosts, and OVMF was already installed. I created a file /etc/cloudstack/agent/uefi.properties and configured it with:

guest.nvram.template.secure=/usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_VARS_4M.ms.fd
guest.nvram.template.legacy=/usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_VARS_4M.fd
guest.nvram.path=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/nvram/
guest.loader.secure=/usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_CODE_4M.secboot.fd
guest.loader.legacy=/usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_CODE_4M.fd

configured VM with: UEFI - secure, controller - virtio

after this I get BSOD - inaccessible boot device
I boot in recovery mode, and add driver from virtio-win.iso for my system.

dism /image:c:\ /add-driver /driver:d:\viostor\2k19\amd64\viostor.inf

After this I'm able to boot my VM without any problem.
So my root issue was uncofigured UEFI support on KVM hosts.