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Fix virtio-win install steps for EL hosts #657

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13fe21f
Fix virtio-win install steps for EL hosts
andrijapanicsb May 26, 2026
41be3ba
Clarify VDDK download and version guidance
andrijapanicsb May 26, 2026
108a9a7
Clarify VDDK 8 recommendation for VMware imports
codex May 27, 2026
4c251b2
Update instructions for importing VMware VMs into KVM
andrijapanicsb May 27, 2026
3d72e47
Revise VMware to KVM import instructions
andrijapanicsb May 27, 2026
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121 changes: 74 additions & 47 deletions source/adminguide/virtual_machines/importing_vmware_vms_into_kvm.rst
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -20,18 +20,21 @@ Requirements on the KVM hosts

The CloudStack agent does not install the virt-v2v binary as a dependency. The virt-v2v binary must be installed manually on KVM hosts, or the migration will fail.

.. note:: Newer versions of virt-v2v - v2.7.x on EL9 variants, v2.4.x on Ubuntu 24.04 - are strongly advised. Older versions of virt-v2v - e.g. v1.4.x should be avoided.


The virt-v2v output (progress) is logged in the CloudStack agent logs, to help administrators track the progress on the Instance conversion processes. The verbose mode for virt-v2v can be enabled by adding the following line to /etc/cloudstack/agent/agent.properties and restart cloudstack-agent:

::

dnf install virt-v2v
dnf install virt-v2v / apt install virt-v2v

echo "virtv2v.verbose.enabled=true" >> /etc/cloudstack/agent/agent.properties

systemctl restart cloudstack-agent


Installing virt-v2v on Ubuntu KVM hosts does not install nbdkit which is required in the conversion of VMware VCenter guests. To install it, please execute:
Installing virt-v2v on Ubuntu KVM hosts does not install nbdkit, which is required in the conversion of VMware VCenter guests. To install it, please execute:

::

Expand All @@ -53,50 +56,72 @@ Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, 24.04 LTS
======================== ========================


Importing Windows VMs from VMware requires installing the virtio drivers for Windows on the hypervisor hosts for the virt-v2v conversion.
Recommended distributions, due to the most recent virt-v2v version (EL9 prefered)

On (RH)EL hosts:

::

yum install virtio-win
.. cssclass:: table-striped table-bordered table-hover

You can also install the RPM manually from https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.noarch.rpm
======================== ========================
Linux Distribution Versions
======================== ========================
Alma Linux 9
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Rocky Linux 9
Oracle Linux 9
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
======================== ========================


For Debian-based distributions:
Importing Windows VMs from VMware requires installing the virtio drivers inside that Windows VMs and that is executed by the host running virt-v2v conversion.
The Fedora-provided ``virtio-win`` RPM installs the drivers under ``/usr/share/virtio-win``, which is one of virt-v2v's
default search paths.

Ubuntu don’t seem to ship the virtio-win package with drivers, which causes virt-v2v not to convert the VMWare Windows guests to virtio profiles. This could result in slow IDE drives and Intel E1000 NICs. As a workaround, we can follow the below steps to install the package from the RPM on all KVM hosts running the virt-v2v:
On EL-based hosts, including RHEL, Oracle Linux, Rocky Linux and Alma Linux, install the Fedora-provided RPM directly.

::

apt install virtio-win (if the package is not available, then manual steps will be required to install the virtio drivers for windows)

wget https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.noarch.rpm
dnf install -y https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.noarch.rpm

# install “alien” which can convert rpms to debs
apt -y install alien
rpm -qa | grep -i virtio-win
ls -l /usr/share/virtio-win


For Debian-based distributions (alien is needed for conversion of .rpm to .deb package):

::

# the conversion, can take a while
wget -O virtio-win.noarch.rpm https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.noarch.rpm
apt -y install alien
alien -d virtio-win.noarch.rpm

# install the resulting deb
dpkg -i virtio-win*.deb
ls -l /usr/share/virtio-win

In addition to this, we need to install the below package as well to avoid the error “virt-v2v: error: One of rhsrvany.exe or pvvxsvc.exe is missing in /usr/share/virt-tools“.
On some distros, the Windows helper binary "rhsrvany.exe", which is used for Windows-based VM firstboot scripts and some other actions, might be missing.

::

wget -nd -O srvany.rpm https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org//packages/mingw-srvany/1.1/4.fc38/noarch/mingw32-srvany-1.1-4.fc38.noarch.rpm
To avoid virt-v2v error like ``virt-v2v: error: One of rhsrvany.exe or pvvxsvc.exe is missing in /usr/share/virt-tools`` - check if the file exists (it's actually a symbolic link):

alien -d srvany.rpm
::

dpkg -i *srvany*.deb
ls -la /usr/share/virt-tools/rhsrvany.exe


The OVF tool (ovftool) must be installed on the destination KVM hosts if the hosts should export VM files (OVF) from vCenter. If not, the management server exports them (the management server doesn't require ovftool installed).
If the file does not exist, proceed with the commands below (EL8 and EL9 variants usually already have this in place, so are not affected)

Steps to install ovftool
Ubuntu-based distros

::

wget -nd -O srvany.rpm https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/packages/mingw-srvany/1.1/4.fc38/noarch/mingw32-srvany-1.1-4.fc38.noarch.rpm
[ -f /usr/bin/alien ] || apt -y install alien
alien -d srvany.rpm
dpkg -i *srvany*.deb
mkdir -p /usr/share/virt-tools
ln -sf /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw/bin/rhsrvany.exe /usr/share/virt-tools/rhsrvany.exe
ln -sf /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw/bin/pnp_wait.exe /usr/share/virt-tools/pnp_wait.exe
ls -la /usr/share/virt-tools/rhsrvany.exe

The OVF tool (ovftool) must be installed on the destination KVM hosts if the hosts are to export VM files (OVF) from vCenter. If not, the management server exports them (the management server doesn't require ovftool installed).

Download the ovftool from https://developer.broadcom.com/tools/open-virtualization-format-ovf-tool/latest

Expand All @@ -108,7 +133,7 @@ Download the ovftool from https://developer.broadcom.com/tools/open-virtualizati

ln -s /usr/local/ovftool/ovftool /usr/local/bin/ovftool

If you are hitting the following error when running ovftool, install the dependecy
If you are hitting the following error when running ovftool, install the dependency

./ovftool.bin: error while loading shared libraries: libnsl.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -144,8 +169,9 @@ This reduces disk I/O amplification, eliminates temporary staging storage, and s
.. note::

CloudStack does not distribute VDDK, operators must download it separately.
Along with the new VDDK-based conversion method the traditional OVF-based method remains supported for environments.
Along with the new VDDK-based conversion method, the traditional OVF-based method remains supported for environments.
Operators can choose the conversion method on a per-migration basis in the UI import wizard.

Host Prerequisites for VDDK-based Conversion
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -181,14 +207,26 @@ Ubuntu:

**Step 2: Download and install VDDK**

Download the VDDK tarball and extract it on the KVM host. The CloudStack agent will detect the VDDK library
directory from the extracted package layout or it can also be configured explicitly via the ``vddk.lib.dir``
property in ``/etc/cloudstack/agent/agent.properties``.
Download the VDDK Linux tarball from Broadcom's VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit page:
https://developer.broadcom.com/sdks/vmware-virtual-disk-development-kit-vddk/

Use the latest available VDDK 8.x Linux tarball for all supported KVM conversion hosts, including EL8, EL9,
Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 24.04 hosts. VDDK 8.x covers vSphere 7 and vSphere 8 environments and is the recommended
stable choice for most deployments. Do not use VDDK 9.x unless the source environment is vSphere 9 and the
``virt-v2v`` and ``nbdkit`` package combination has been explicitly validated, because VDDK 9.x is targeted at
vSphere 9 and is not the expected default for vSphere 7 or vSphere 8 environments.

Extract the tarball under a consistent location such as the example below. The CloudStack agent auto-detects a valid
``vmware-vix-disklib-distrib`` directory when it can find one on the host. If VDDK is extracted elsewhere, or if the
host has more than one VDDK installation and a specific one should be used, configure the directory explicitly with the
``vddk.lib.dir`` property in ``/etc/cloudstack/agent/agent.properties`` - as explained in the

::

mkdir -p /opt/vmware-vddk
tar -xf VMware-vix-disklib-9*.tar.gz -C /opt/vmware-vddk

# VDDK 8.x example for EL8, EL9, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 24.04 hosts
tar -xf VMware-vix-disklib-8*.tar.gz -C /opt/vmware-vddk

Expected layout after extraction::

Expand All @@ -197,26 +235,15 @@ Expected layout after extraction::
include/
bin64/

**Step 3: Add EL9 compatibility symlink (when using VDDK 9)**

On EL9 distributions, virt-v2v may expect ``libvixDiskLib.so.8``. Create this compatibility symlink:

::

cd /opt/vmware-vddk/vmware-vix-disklib-distrib/lib64
ln -s libvixDiskLib.so.9 libvixDiskLib.so.8

.. note:: This compatibility symlink is commonly required on RHEL 9, Rocky Linux 9, and Alma Linux 9.

**Step 4: Verify host setup**
**Step 3: Verify host setup**

::

ls /opt/vmware-vddk/vmware-vix-disklib-distrib/lib64/libvixDiskLib.so.8
nbdkit vddk --dump-plugin libdir=/opt/vmware-vddk/vmware-vix-disklib-distrib/lib64 | grep vddk_library_version
virt-v2v --version
nbdkit --version

**Step 5: Restart the CloudStack agent**
**Step 4: Restart the CloudStack agent**

Restart the CloudStack agent service so it detects the installed VDDK library and makes it available in the UI:

Expand All @@ -226,7 +253,7 @@ Restart the CloudStack agent service so it detects the installed VDDK library an

After the agent restarts, verify that VDDK installation was detected by checking the host details in the CloudStack UI.

**Step 6: Verify required network and firewall access**
**Step 5: Verify required network and firewall access**

Allow the following ports through any firewall or network security controls between the KVM conversion host and the
VMware endpoints:
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -367,7 +394,7 @@ Since version 4.22.1 it is possible to select the Guest OS for the VM to be impo

The conversion is performed on a random (or explicitly chosen) KVM host (if the ovftools are installed), otherwise, the management server will export/copy the VM files (optionally, you can force this action to be done by the management server even the KVM hosts have the ovftools installed in it). Irrelevant if the KVM host or the management server performs the copy of the VM files (OVF), you can further either let CloudStack choose which KVM host should do the conversion of the VM files using virt-v2v and which host will import the files to the destination Primary Storage Pool, or you can explicitly choose these KVM hosts for each of the 2 mentioned operations.

When importing an instance from VMware to KVM, CloudStack performs the following actions:
When importing an instance from VMware to KVM (OVF method), CloudStack performs the following actions:

- Export the VM files (OVF) of the instance to a temporary storage location
(which can be selected by the administrator). The export is performed by a
Expand Down
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