Tony's Nerd Blog

(Please note:  The instructions listed below can actually be used to import into ESX an image made on Vmware Player, Workstation, Fusion, Microsoft Virtual Server, Microsoft Virtual PC, Parallels Desktop, Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery, Live State Recovery, Norton Ghost, Acronis, and StorageCraft)

I think VMWare Virtual Appliances and Virtual Machines are great.  They are revolutionizing the way software is obtained, deployed and managed.  Within minutes, you can have a full installation of a Wiki server, evaluation copy of Windows 2008 with SQL 2008 or a MySql server running on OpenSolaris without having to configure the software pieces yourself.  I usually evaluate Virtual Appliances on my Vista computer with VMware Player or at home with VMware Fusion on my Mac.  Once in a while a Virtual Appliance is so useful, like MyNmap or BackTrack that I want to use it in my production environment on my ESX servers.  A Virtual Appliances’ filesystem, out of the box, is compatible with VMware Player, Workstation and Fusion.  In order to run one on an ESX server takes a little bit more work but ultimately easy to do if you do everything in the correct order.

(If your downloaded VM has an .ovf file, stop reading now.  Just open up Virtual Infrastructure, click File, Virtual Appliance, Import.  You’re done.  This blog entry is for VM’s without an ovf file, specifically a VM that was created on Player, Fusion or Workstation.  Not all Virtual Appliances have .ovf’s.)

For this exercise, I’m going to use MyNmap v. 0.50 by Todd Garrison for two reasons: it’s a fantastic virtual appliance I use in production and it’s very small so the conversion process is quick.

Download and install Vmware Converter

Download it here and install.  It’s free!

 Launch VMware Converter

Choose “Other” as the source type.  Browse to your downloaded appliance and double-click on the VMX file.

If you get message “Warning: Cannot the configure source image,” don’t be alarmed. 

It just means Converter can’t automatically install VMware Tools, configure the identity or delete System Restore Points automatically which are items that usually only work when converting a Windows VM.  Don’t worry – you can customize the VM later once the OS is up.

I usually just accept the default disk size, but you can resize the size of the disk here.  Keep in mind you are resizing the disk that the OS thinks is physically in the system.  You may have to go through extra steps in your OS to get the system to see the larger partition.

Select VMWare Infrastructure Virtual Machine as the destination type.  Under Server, type in the name of your ESX host or your server that has VMWare Infrastructure installed.  I always import into VMWare Infrastructure so I can choose which cluster to install into. 

Choose a name for your VM and choose a cluster, resource pool or ESX host to install your VM onto.  In the next screen, choose your datastore – iSCSI disks, a SAN, NAS or local storage.

You probably want to uncheck Connect at power on so you have a chance to configure the NIC before it joins your LAN.  It’s totally up to you.  Most Virtual Appliances are configured to use DHCP, so if your network uses DHCP you can just leave this checked.

Customization options are greyed out.  This is usually for Windows OS’s only.

Click Finish and the conversion process will start.  Depending on the size of the VM and the speed of your network this process can take anywhere from a few minutes to many many hours.

Add the Virtual Machine to your inventory

Open up Virtual Infrastructure Client and browse to your datastore.  Find the MyNmap folder, right click the VMX file and click Add to Inventory.  Power up your new VM, do some OS customization of your own and now your have a new VM to play with!

Troubleshooting

VMware Converter is very picky about the state the original VM was in when the original author packaged it up for distribution.  Often I have received this error message when I try to connect to a VMX:

Unable to convert a virtual machine while it is powered on or suspended.  Shut down and power off the virtual machine before converting it.

Something got messed up somewhere along the way.  Usually it’s the lock files (lck), something wrong with the last snapshot or the system was shut down uncleanly.  To fix this:

-          Delete all lck files and directories

-          Start the VM up in Player, Fusion or Workstation.  Take a snapshot.   (Right-click the VM, Snapshot, Take Snapshot)

-          Shut down the VM cleanly.  (halt or shutdown –h now or Start, Shutdown – what your OS requires)

-          Turn off the VM by clicking on the red STOP button in your client manager – the equivalent of cutting the power to the box.

-          Try the conversion process again

Hope people out there find this helpful.  Please don’t hesitate to ask me troubleshooting questions.