Problem importing ANY ESXi VMDK into Xen Orchestra CE

Murf

Hi all, I just get a spinning wheel when importing a 20MB VMDK
I am using Xen Orchestra, commit eedac
I would upload the VMDK but it has sensitive host name info in the name and metadata sorry. I could change it but that would just be introducing something else to potentially cause issues, however I can describe how I created it

Edit a VM in vCenter and add a new 20MB drive, thin provisioned
In the Windows Server 2022 VM enable the new drive and initialise/format it
Copy the XenServer tools exe to the drive from within the VM
unmount the drive
Download the drive from the datastore through vCenter UI, this creates a zip file
Extract the zipfile
drag the VMDK/s to the XO Import UI

Thanks in advance

Danp

@Murf said in Problem importing ANY ESXi VMDK into Xen Orchestra CE:

I am using Xen Orchestra, commit eedac

There have been many commits over the past 10 days. You should update to the latest commit and then retest.

Also, your title says any VMDK. Hard to believe that you've tested every single VMDK that was ever created.

Murf

@Danp thanks I will update, and yeah, that was a tongue-in-cheek poke at the previous topic of " Problem with importing large VMDK disks"

Murf

@Danp updated to Xen Orchestra, commit f7223 and still the same issue.

I have inspected the UI console, in case this helps

Danp

@Murf I'm testing locally with the Windows 2022 VMDK from MS. If I can't replicate here, then I'd assume it is a compatibility issue with the file generated b vCenter.

Danp

So, no issues on my end importing the VMDK into XOA or XO from sources.

@Murf Can you generate a new VMDK without any confidential data using the same technique?

Murf

@Danp Sure, how do I attach a zip file to the post? it wont let me.

Danp

@Murf Sent you a link via PM

Murf

@Danp When I migrate Windows Server VMs the network interface does not have the settings anymore and I have to reconfigure them manually, is this expected behavior?

Danp

@Murf No, that doesn't sound normal. Are you still referring to the import from VMWare process or are you actually migrating between XCP-ng hosts?

Murf

@Danp Yes the import process. I think it is because we are using VMXNET 3 interfaces, not E1000 (which caused us horrible problems over the years)

Danp

@Murf Can you show screenshots of network settings from before and after import occurs?

Murf

@Danp no need really, they are just set to DHCP instead of the static settings we had, as if I had added a new interface altogether

Murf

@Danp
In VMware->

In XOA after import ->

Danp

I haven't heard of this before. Maybe @florent will know why this is occurring.

Mathieu

Just experienced the same issue with a few VMs I imported from VMware.

I think it's a Windows issue, from what I can tell.

The network adapter type changes after the import in xcp-ng (from VMXNet to XenServer PV), that's normal.

Windows do not allow the same IP address to be used automatically for a different type of network adapter, so that's why it reverts to DHCP with the new adapter.

You can see that by setting the previous static IP address in the new adapter, it will warn you that the address was used with a previous adapter and asks for confirmation.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/networking/error-message-when-you-set-ip-address

No idea if there's a way to avoid that.

florent

@Mathieu Hi ,

does it do the same when using the v2v tool ?

the vmdk import does not modify anything , only trasnform the disk format from vmdk to vhd, while the v2v also reconfigure the VM

Mathieu

@florent I did import my VMs with V2V, it was not with a vdmk import.

florent

@Mathieu can you check in the import task log, you should have a part containing the network information extracted from vsphere :

What does it contains ?

Mathieu

@florent This is what I see for the last VM I imported:

  "networks": [
              {
                "label": "VM Network 2",
                "macAddress": "00:0c:29:48:70:d6",
                "isGenerated": true
              }
            ]
          }