Virtualyzation

Archive for the ‘CLI’ Category

I often run in to a situation in my lab (r@manlabs), where I need to move my vCenter Server onto a different host and I don’t have a SAN/NAS handy. In these situations, I log into the console OS using putty and use SCP utility to copy the vCenter files. And then on the destination ESX host, add the vCenter server to the inventory and mount the VM.

• Enable SSH on both source and destination ESX hosts
  • Log into the vCenter Server
  • Select the source ESX host and click on Configuration tab
  • Select Security Profile under Software
  • Click on Properties
  • Tick the check box “SSH Client” and verify and if not already ticked, tick the box for “SSH Server”
  • Click OK
  • Repeat the steps 2 through 6 on the destination ESX host.
  • Shutdown the Virtual Machine

• Log into the destination ESX host using Putty
  • # cd /vmfs/volumes
  • ls
  • make a note of the full path of the datastore you want to migrate the VM on to:

• Log into the source ESX host using Putty
  • #cd /vmfs/volumes/datastore (where the VM is located)
  • copy the VM to the destination ESX host

• compression is optional, but it will speed things up a bit.
• If you receive a message about authenticity and to continue, type yes and hit enter
• type the root password of the destination ESX host when prompted
• Once the copying is completed, connect to the destination ESX host, using VIC and register the .vmx file.