Migrate from VMware ESXi / vSphere to Proxmox VE

Careful! Make back-ups for each VM before starting the migration. 

Prerequisites:

ESXi Environment

Before starting the migration process, a couple of key-items need to be prepared on the ESXi environment*.

1. Within the ESXi GUI under "System > Advanced Settings" the following 2 settings need to be (re)configured 
   (For ESXi versions older than 6.7.0 these settings need to be adjusted using the CLI):

   Config.HostAgent.vmacore.soap.maxSessionCount == 0

   Config.HostAgent.vmacore.soap.sessionTimeout == 0

2. Restart the management agents to apply these new values.
3. Make sure the VM does not have an attached CD-rom (ISO), and has NO existing snapshots. This has a major impact on the overall migration speed.
4. Install all the latest patches & updates on the VMs.
5. Pre-download the qemu-guest-agent. For Windows machines you'll also need to pre-download the Virt-IO drivers.
   !! You will receive 1 ZIP file, and 1 ISO file. Do NOT install these tools & drivers yet.
6. Document / write down the current network settings, these settings will be lost after the removal of the VMware Tools. Important
7. Uninstall the VMware Tools that are installed on the VM.
8. Install the previously downloaded qemu-guest-agent, and if applicable also the Virt-IO drivers.

*Important! Make sure that the VM-name & underlying directory-structure contains NO spaces, if this is the case please following THIS article. 

**Important! VMs backed by vSAN storage are not able to be migrated, the work-around is to migrate the VM-disk storage to another storage-type.

Proxmox VE Environment

For the migration of VMs, a handful of items need to be (re)configured on the Proxmox VE hypervisor, make sure that your Proxmox machine is up-to-date and is on the latest 8.x version

1. Under "Datacenter > Storage" add the storage-type "ESXi". Fill in all required information.
2. Under your Proxmox node you will see a new storage-type that has a cloud-icon with the storage "ID" you've filled in. Verify that this storage works & all VM's are available by clicking on this storage type.

Start migration | VMware ESXi > Promox VE

1. Once you are ready to start the migration, turn off the VM on the ESXi machine, head over to the Proxmox GUI and select the ESXi-storage. Select the VM which you want to import and click "Import".
2. If applicable, you can add / change hardware specifications for your VM, you can use the Tuxis Migration best-practices as assistance.
3. Make sure that the following configuration is set correctly:

• OS Type (Linux, Windows)
• Default Storage (Ceph, ZFS, lvm, etc.)
• Default Bridge (vmbr0, etc.)
• Advanced > Enable "Prepare for VirtIO-SCSI".    <-- This is only required for Windows machines if applicable
  
• Advanced > Network-Interfaces > VirtIO (Paravirtualized)

 4. Once verified that all, click on "Import" once more.

 5. Let this migration run, this speed varies based on disk IO & network speed.

Finalizing the migration process

Linux VM | Proxmox VE

1. Re-check the hardware specifications for the VM, optionally add extra hardware (TPM, EFI-disk, Cloud-init drive).
2. Adjust the boot-order for the VM, default it will try to only boot iPXE. After this has been corrected START the VM.
3. Log-in on the Proxmox console for the VM, log-in into the VM and adjust your network settings. These settings should have been written down before (see "Prerequisites ESXi > Step 5").
4. Check if all services hosted on this VM are running correctly.

Windows VM | Proxmox VE 

1. Re-check the hardware specifications for the VM, optionally add extra hardware (TPM, EFI-disk, Cloud-init drive).
2. Adjust the boot-order for the VM, default it will try to only boot iPXE. After this has been correct START the VM.
3. Log-in on the Proxmox console for the VM, log-in into the VM using the last logged-in account. (needed to mitigate possible caching issues)
4. Adjust your network settings. Windows could display a warning message about used IP addresses. These settings should have been written down before (see "Prerequisites ESXi > Step 5").
5. Optionally you could migrate the disks for this VM to VirtIO-SCSI, you can use our instructions for this.  <-- Skip this step if this is not applicable.
6. Check if all services hosted on this VM are running correctly. (ADDS, DNS, VPN, IIS)

Disclaimer:

- Tuxis is not responsible for any possible damage to your environment & machines during this migration process.