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Importing a Virtual Machine

You can move a machine onto Gallium Edge from another hypervisor, a physical server, or a backup appliance. Whatever the source, the process is the same once you have a disk image:

  1. Prepare the source (Windows only).
  2. Export a disk image from the source hypervisor and convert it if needed.
  3. Upload the image with the File Transfer Manager.
  4. Create a blank VM, attach the disk, set it as the boot disk, and start the machine.

Prepare a Windows Source​

Edge presents VirtIO disks to Windows virtual machines, and every VM boots in UEFI mode; there is no per-VM firmware option. A Windows source must have the VirtIO drivers installed and boot via UEFI before it is exported, or it will not boot after import. Complete the steps below on the source machine, then export the disk.

Modern Linux distributions ship the VirtIO drivers built in, so a Linux source needs no preparation; skip ahead to Export from Source Hypervisor.

If the source can no longer be prepared, for example because the machine has failed and only a backup image remains, import the disk anyway and repair the first boot with Recovering an Unbootable Windows VM. The same page covers a machine that is already imported and stops with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.

Install the VirtIO Drivers​

The VirtIO driver ISO can be downloaded from the Gallium CDN here. Mount the ISO on the source machine and run virtio-win-guest-tools.exe from its root, which installs the full VirtIO driver set along with the QEMU guest agent.

Make the Storage Driver Boot Critical​

Windows only loads the VirtIO storage driver during boot if its service is marked to start at boot. Without this, the first boot on Edge stops with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. Set the Start value of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\viostor to 0 from an elevated command prompt:

reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\viostor" /v Start /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Convert BIOS Systems to UEFI​

Check the source's firmware mode: run msinfo32 and read BIOS Mode. UEFI needs no conversion. Legacy means the disk uses an MBR layout and must be converted to GPT before export, because Edge boots VMs in UEFI mode only.

Convert with the mbr2gpt tool, included in Windows 10 version 1703 and later and Windows Server 2019 and later. From an elevated command prompt:

mbr2gpt /validate /allowFullOS
mbr2gpt /convert /allowFullOS

/allowFullOS lets the tool run from the running system rather than the Windows recovery environment. Run the validate step first and resolve any problems it reports before converting.

caution

Conversion cannot be reversed. Afterward the source machine itself boots only in UEFI mode, so a physical machine whose firmware is set to legacy BIOS will not start again until its firmware is switched to UEFI.

Export from Source Hypervisor​

Export the disk with whatever the source platform provides: a virtual disk export on a hypervisor, an image of a physical disk, or a backup appliance's image export. The File Transfer Manager accepts QCOW2 directly and converts VMDK automatically during import; other formats such as VHDX, VHD, VDI, and raw must be converted with qemu-img first. See Import and Export Disks.

Export from Datto Siris​

Gallium Edge does not import Datto backups directly, but the Datto Siris can export a protected machine as a VMDK:

  1. Sign in to the Datto appliance's web UI.
  2. Select Restore from the main menu.
  3. Choose the Agent (the protected machine) you want to restore.
  4. Select Export Image and choose a recovery point.
  5. Configure the export:
    • Destination: Network Share.
    • Export format: VMDK.
    • Boot Type: UEFI. Edge virtual machines boot in UEFI mode, and matching the firmware type avoids an unbootable disk after import. Choose legacy BIOS only if you know the source machine used it.
  6. Select Export to start the image export.
  7. When the export completes, access the exported VMDK over the CIFS/Samba path the appliance displays for the network share.

A machine recovered from backup cannot be prepared first. If the Windows source never had the VirtIO drivers installed, expect the first boot to stop with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE and repair it with Recovering an Unbootable Windows VM.

Upload via the File Transfer Manager​

The File Transfer Manager streams the disk directly to the hypervisor and converts it into the format Edge uses. See Import and Export Disks for its connectivity and browser requirements.

  1. Open the target hypervisor's detail page and select the Actions tab.
  2. On the File Transfer Manager card, select Connect.
  3. Select Import and choose the exported disk image.
  4. Wait while the hypervisor converts the disk. Conversion time depends on the size of the image and the speed of the Storage Pool.

Once conversion finishes, the imported disk is available to attach to a virtual machine.

Create the VM and Attach the Disk​

The imported disk carries the operating system, but it needs a virtual machine to run inside: build a small placeholder VM from a blank template, then swap the imported disk in as the boot device.

  1. Create a blank template: go to Inventory > Templates, choose Create Template, set the Operating System Type to match the guest, and add a single blank 8 GB disk with Add Blank Disk, then Finalize Template.
  2. Deploy the template to the target hypervisor with Create Virtual Machine, and turn off Start VM immediately upon creation so the VM stays powered off.
  3. Open the new VM's Virtual Disks tab.
  4. Select Attach Disk and choose the disk you imported.
  5. Select Set Boot Disk on the imported disk so the VM boots from the imported operating system.
  6. Detach the blank 8 GB scratch disk.
  7. Start the virtual machine and open its console with Connect on the Dashboard tab to confirm it boots.

Only change the boot disk while the VM is powered off.