[Users] Making v2v easier?

[Sander Grendelman]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 4:19 PM, Itamar Heim <iheim at redhat.com> wrote:
> I see a lot of threads about v2v pains (mostly from ESX?)
>
> I'm interested to see if we can make this simpler/easier.
hear hear!

>
> if you have experience with this, please describe the steps you are using
> (also the source platform),

Sources:
- Existing KVM (virt-manager/libvirt) platform
- ESX
- ova/ovf templates from several sources

Methods:
- KVM:
  virt-v2v with libvirtxml option, works reasonably well, most issues
are with windows guests where virt-v2v needs libguestfs-winsupport and
virtio-win (RHEL only)
- ESX:
  virt-v2v which works reasonably well _if_ the right packages
(libguestfs-winsupport virtio-win) are installed.
  virt-v2v can be used directly from ESX/ESX host (configure .netrc
first) but this is quite slow
  another option is to export the VM as an OVA and then import it with virt-v2v
- ova/ovf templates:
  hit and miss with virt-v2v, especially if they contain something
that is not a regular windows/linux guest.
  Another option is to do a direct copy of the disks on a pre-created
VM, clumsy.

> and how you would like to see this make simpler
> (I'm assuming that would start from somewhere in the webadmin probably).

Webadmin would be nice, but better behaviour from existing tools would be
a nice start too.

For example: the flow with virt-v2v is
1) Analyze source, look for disks
2) Convert/copy disks to ovirt export domain
3) Try to add virtio stuff to the copied disks on the export domain

If step 3 fails ( which happens a LOT), the copied disks are removed.
This is very frustrating if you just waited a couple of hours for a large
VM (e.g. 200GB) to be copied :(

Some kind of graceful abort/resume would be VERY welcome.

Another issue with virt-v2v is that it _always_ tries to add virtio drivers.
I have a virtual appliance that contains some kind of proprietary embedded OS:
adding drivers will always fail, give me some option to override that
and configure
simple ide / e1000 hardware for the VM

>
> Thanks,
>    Itamar
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