Copy VM from within VM to External Image

[Biren78]

I have a client with a completely non-working Hypervisor management engine and a Linux VM that we need to move off. We can't get in and can't take the host down nor offline so our normal options are limited.

We do have root access to the Linux VM though.

Here's my question: is there any easy way to run a command from the Linux VM to copy the entire VM into a drive file like a vdmk or vhdx or .RAW?

 

[ultradense]

Treat it as a physical to virtual (p2v) migration. You might need to mount a DVD iso for this...
There is software that can do this, however it has been a long time since I used them.

 

[Danic]

I would root into Linux VM and DD (personally I would use ddrescue) the whole disk to a raw file on a remote file system. This would only work if your Linux VM is serving up read only data. If you have mixed workload or heavy database use on this server then you could get corruption in your output file. Good Luck.

 

[PnoT]

What Hypervisor are they running? Is this VM in a cluster? Do you have a backup solution that can do a baremetal backup?

 

[Biren78]

I would root into Linux VM and DD (personally I would use ddrescue) the whole disk to a raw file on a remote file system. This would only work if your Linux VM is serving up read only data. If you have mixed workload or heavy database use on this server then you could get corruption in your output file. Good Luck.

Trying this now. Thank you for the idea. It basically has no writes on weekend days.

 

[mrkrad]

back in the days you could prep a destination partition and bootloaders on a destination server, and use TAR over RSH/SSH to move the files around keeping the perms/etc correct. Was the only way to backup the system partition back then.

 

[cperalt1]

back in the days you could prep a destination partition and bootloaders on a destination server, and use TAR over RSH/SSH to move the files around keeping the perms/etc correct. Was the only way to backup the system partition back then.

VMware converter standalone would work

 

[wildchild]

depending on what hyper visor.... wget could also do the trick to copy vm files off

 

[razvanc.mobile]

If there are no writes, i would also sugest vmware converter standalone. Just make sure your /tmp is writable.