We have an ESX4 server with some vm's on it we were using for test. The evaluation license is expired, so we want to convert the server to ESXi4. Is there a way to do this without totally reinstalling the OS and wiping out the virtual machines?
Thanks,
Scott
There are no migration/upgrade process between ESX to ESXi afaik, you'll need to do reinstall.
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William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
There are no migration/upgrade process between ESX to ESXi afaik, you'll need to do reinstall.
=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
I was afraid of that. Thanks.
Hi Scott,
If I've read your question correctly - as William mentioned you will have to reinstall from fresh your ESX host with ESXi though you should be able to salvage any VMs you may have on local vmfs storage of the ESX host pre-reinstallation. This will save you having to recreate your VMs again - assuming you wanted to keep them.
Cheers,
Simon
Simon Seagrave
TechHead
VMware vExpert 2009
If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
Thanks Simon. What is the best way to do this? Can I leave them on the local disk? They are not on a SAN.
Thanks,
Scott
Actually, you can migrate from ESX4 to ESXi4 without destroying your datastore. Follow my instructions in this post I made last month:
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/247357?tstart=60
The script works quite well for me, however I'd appreciate any feedback that you have.
Thanks!
--Patrick.
The absolute simplest way to go from ESX to ESXi is to install ESXi to a USB stick. Boots, finds the datastore. Browse the datastore and delete the ESX COS VM and you are done.