Installation guide

C H A P T E R 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines
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On a Linux host, expand the SCSI Drives tree and click the name of the drive you
want to migrate. Click Choose to see the location information.
2. Using a Web browser, log in to the ESX Server machine as root and click Manage
Files. Use the file manager in the VMware Management Interface to perform all
the file copy steps described below. For information on using the file manager,
see Using the VMware Management Interface File Manager on page 163.
3. In the file manager, navigate to the location of the source disk files. Select the
main disk (.vmdk or .dsk) file for the virtual disk you are migrating, then click
Copy.
Caution: Do not cut the virtual disk file. This ensures you have a backup copy of
the virtual disk.
4. Navigate to the vmfs folder and open the folder for the VMFS partition where
you want to store the virtual disk file. Click Paste.
A dialog box appears with the message “You are transferring one or more
console virtual disks to a VMFS partition. In order for virtual machines to access
these disks, they must be converted to the VMFS format. Although you can
convert console disks at any time, it is recommended that you do so now.”
This means the VMFS partition recognizes the files as a virtual disk and converts
the disk to the VMFS-2 format during the import. This allows the disk to be
accessed by virtual machines running under ESX Server 2.1.
The file you are pasting is selected. Click OK.
The virtual disk is imported to the VMFS partition and converted to the new
format.
Note: If you do not see the message about transferring disks, there is a problem
with the import. Be sure you are pasting to the correct vmfs folder.
5. Select the newly imported .dsk file, then click Edit Properties.
6. Change the user and group names in the right-hand column so the file’s owner
and group match those of the user who will run the virtual machine.
Click OK.
7. Log out, then log back in as the user who will run the new virtual machine.
8. Create a new virtual machine as described in Creating a New Virtual Machine on
page 38. When you set the file name for the new virtual machine’s disk, be sure
to use the virtual disk file you just copied to the VMFS partition.