Migrating Physical Computers to Virtual Machines and Containers

You can also use the pmgirate utility to move a stand-alone physical computer to a virtual machine and Container. The migration process includes copying the whole contents of the physical computer (i.e. all its files, directories, quota limits, configuration settings, and so on) to a virtual machine and Container on the Parallels server. After migrating the computer, you will have its exact copy in a virtual machine and Container including the operating system, the IP addresses assigned, the amount of available disk space and memory, etc.

Moving a physical computer to a virtual machine and Container involves completing the following steps:

1. Installing the Parallels agent on the physical computer you want to migrate. This step is required only if you are migrating the physical computer to a virtual machine.
2. Migrating the physical computer by running the pmigrate utility on the server.

Installing the Agent

If you are planning to migrate a physical computer to a virtual machine, you must first install the Parallels agent on this computer. This agent collects essential system data on the physical computer and transfers it to the pmigrate utility on the Parallels server. To install the Parallels agent, do the following:

1. Make sure that your physical computer meets the necessary requirements for installing the Parallels agent. See Requirements for Migrating to Virtual Machines for details.
2. Log in to the physical computer as a user with administrative rights.
3. Copy the Parallels agent installation file to the physical computer. The installation file is located in the /usr/share/pmigrate/tools directory on the Parallels server:
   • parallels-transporter-agent-XXXX.run . Use this file to install the Parallels agent on computers running a Linux operating system.
   • ParallelsTransporterAgent-parallels-XXXX.exe . Use this file to install the Parallels agent on computers running a Windows operating system.
4. Execute the installation file on the physical computer.
5. Follow the instructions of the wizard to install the Parallels agent.
6. Restart the source computer to complete the installation.

   Note : The Parallels agent is automatically launched after the restart, so you do not need to start it manually.

Migrating the Server

Once the physical computer is up and running, you can migrate to a virtual machine and Container on the Parallels server. For example, you can move a physical computer to a virtual machine by running the following command on the destination server:

# pmigrate h root:1qsde34rt@192.168.1.130 v MyVM

where

• h denotes that you are migrating a physical computer.
• root:1qsde34rt@192.168.1.130 is the IP address and credentials of the physical computer to be migrated.

  You can omit the credentials in the command above. In this case you will be asked to provide them during the command execution.

• v indicates that the physical computer is to be moved to a virtual machine.
• MyVM is the name of the resulting virtual machine on the Parallels server.

Once the command is complete, you will find the resulting virtual machine in the /var/parallels directory on the Parallels server.

If you want to migrate the same physical computer to a Container, just specify c instead of v and the ID of the resulting Container (e.g. 101) instead of MyVM. For example, the following command will migrate the physical computer to Container 101:

# pmigrate h root:1qsde34rt@192.168.1.130 c 101

Notes :

1. Migrating physical computers running a Windows operating system to Containers is not supported.

2. Migrating physical computers with system volumes formatted with ReiserFS is not supported.