- DownloadOVFTOOL440tool and install it on your Proxmox server: https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/get-download?downloadGroup=OVFTOOL440
Note that you will need a VMware account.
Make sure the version is new enough to support your used version of ESXi.
- Power off the virtual machine (VM) that you intend to migrate on the ESXi host. If you're migrating multiple VMs, you can choose to shut them down individually or all at once. The approach is flexible and depends on your preference.
- Migrate:
On the Proxmox host, replace the placeholder with the IP address or name of your ESXi host, and specify the destination storage. For example, if you're migrating your Home Assistant container from your ESXi host to Storage2 on the Proxmox host, you would execute the following command
ovftool vi://root@Your.IP.Address/location/to/your/VM /mnt/pve/StorageDisk/
- Next, import the virtual machine (VM) from storage onto your operational disk. For example, if you're setting up your seventh VM (VM ID: 107) on your work drive Ops2, you would execute the following command:
qm importovf VMID /location/VM.ovf DiskName
- Before proceeding with the migration, ensure you check a couple of final things. The migration and import process won't include any passthrough devices or network interfaces. Therefore, you'll need to reconfigure those settings in Proxmox after the migration is complete
When the import is finished, the VM configuration needs to be finalized:
Add a network card: Adjust settings to follow best practices. For example, you can use the CLI to set the CPU type and SCSI controller: qm set {vmid} --cpu x86-64-v2-AES --scsihw virtio-scsi-single
When the guest OS is Windows, the disk bus type needs to be switched from the default SCSI to IDE or SATA.
Detach the disk. It will show up as "Unused" disk.
Attach the disk by double-clicking the "Unused" disk, or selecting it and clicking "Edit". Then set the bus type to either IDE or SATA. Additional steps are necessary to switch to VirtIO.