Server is being migrated from old hardware to new one (slightly better cpu, ram, network and raid disks improving safety).
Old server runs windows 2008 + virtualbox with linux (ubuntu server).
New server is ESXI hypervisor (linux vmware)
What we are trying to do now is to convert linux virtualbox to ESXI.
Its ongoing project that already burned lots of man hours..
Some of the things tried so far:
1) install Hyper-V 2008
2) install various management compoenents to local win7 to configure hyper-v -> failed
3) install Hyper-V 2012 -> failed
4) install and configure ESXI 5
5) after research attempt to migrate physical machine using vcenter standalone converter -> aborted, there would be no disk left to make linux machine
6) after research attempt to migrate linux machine through windows intermediate -> failed with unknown bug
7) tried to install vcenter converter directly to linux
8) required local xserver on windows + tunnel -> installed
9) vcenter converter failed to start -> unknown bug on linux
10) investigating failure to convert linux to vm from windows- issue found, converter makes "Helper vm" to convert linux and this helper vm lacks connectivity. Connectivity cannot be gained because ESXI has no DHCP/NAT..
11) attempted to resolve connectivity issue using OVH IP failover with custom routing -> failed because MAC needs to be specified and helper vm does not allow that
12) attempted to hack into helper vm - partial success, hack worked but no permissions to do anything or alter networking
13) attempt to create fresh ubuntu server, to prepare installation iso was copied to ESXI
14) misconfiguration of driver caused ESXI to lose all image data and access to disk drives -> fatal failure
15) disks reformatted and ESXI reinstalled
16) ubuntu finally installed (battle because network didnt work)
17) ubuntu had no connectivity, spent about 4h with routing and other tweaks with no success
18) fault discovered in OVH failover virtual MAC (ovh bug), recreating virtual MAC resolved it
19) "new" ubuntu finally working with connecitivity, considering ways to transfer data from old to new including clonezilla etc
20) ways found problematic, only manual reinstall/reconfiguration is possible because hw is different
21) one more shot at fixing vcenter standalone converter on linux, after some battle success (installed 170mb of libs + xfce on ubuntu to get faster visual access)
22) standalone converter on linux uses helper vm too -> fail, wont help as helper vm wont get connectivity it needs to process machine
23) considered ways to give helper vm connectivity, solution found in theory, install standalone linux core for routers into ESXI and configure that to do NAT for other VMs -> solution found to time intensive, more options explored
24) alternative way found, its possible to convert virtualbox disk to legacy format which can be imported (after some manual file editor tweaking) into vmware esxi.
25) conversion attempted, it was discovered this would take 15h and need extra disk space we didnt have
26) arranged disk cleanups but conversion didnt start because it would mean total 15h+ downtime
27) det offered help, copied accounts from old to new ubuntu (fresh one)
28) to copy other files like /home we needed to stop most server stuff to avoid writes. After some battling i managed to log in into recovery mode, mount disks and start ssh and lobby server only
29) det started rsync
-> current state
copy eta 8h? but lobby server can be running. Then there will configuration/package installation steps.
Then linux server will be switched to new one.
Then windows host migration will begin (springies, zk site)
