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Hubert Kario
Asked: 2012-06-07 07:01:25 +0800 CST

XenServer migrate machines between hosts

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I have a XenServer 5.6 Free setup with 5 VMs (Windows and Linux) using about 1.5TB of directly attached storage.

Because our virtualisation needs have grown a bit, we currently are preparing a faster XenServer 6.0 Free machine with more RAM and a more storage. Again, directly attached disks.

How can I migrate the VMs between XenServer machines?

I don't need to keep the machines up and running during migration, but using VM export and import would definitely take too long.

Would making a VM with the same configuration on new host and dd'ing the LVM volume over network be the only quick and least painful solution? Are there any "gotchas" I should look out for when doing something like this? The old machine has an AMD Phenom II, the new has Intel Xeon E5 CPUs.

migration xenserver

4 Answers

  1. Taking the Logical Volume and copying it to the remote host works. But it takes time. And it's a waste of time if the partition isn't fully utilized Especially if its a big partition as unused space will be copied as well.

    I'm using Xen on Debian, but it should be generic enough for other set-ups

    When I move my XEN machines I do this:

    • Shut down the vm
    • Mount the VM localy in read only (nice to be safe)
    • Create an new LVM for disk/swap on the destination machine
    • Create file-system and swap on the LVMs
    • Mount the file-system
    • Copy Xen config file to the new xen DomU
    • rsync -avrplEHXgo --numeric-ids --exclude=/mnt/ --exclude=/proc/ --exclude=/dev/ --exclude=/tmp/ from-source-machine to destination-machine
    • On destination, create mnt, proc, dev , swap with the proper permissions. un-mount the file-system

    and you should be ready to go

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  2. Best Answer

    I think that the fastest way to do the migration is to use a disk imaging software. In the company i work almost all the machines are hosted in XEN and VMWARE servers. We are facing this situation very often. We use Active@ Boot Disk that is very fast and reliable. At first boot with the cd in the server you want to transfer and backup to a network folder your server image. Then at the new XEN server, boot and restore that image to the new server. I hope this help.

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  3. In the interest of minimizing downtime, you can create a snapshot. Then you can export it, move it and import it on the new machine.

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  4. It's been a while since using xen but .. what if you booted both xenservers up using a live distro e.g. parted magic

    enable samba sharing and copy the virtual hard disks directly across .. stick a nice gigabit (or higher) switch in the middle and you'll be done in no time at all!

    Then just import the config files from the xenserver menu?

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