virt-convert1

Usage

Overview

virt-convert is a command line tool for converting VMX or OVF virtual machines to native libvirt XML. Disk format conversion can also be done at the same time.

The simplest invocation is simply: virt-convert INPUT. INPUT might be a .vmx or .ovf file, a directory containing a .vmx or .ovf file (and likely 1 or more disk images), or an appliance archive like .zip, .tar.gz, or .ova. virt-convert will try to do the right thing in each case.

By default, the virt-convert will convert all encountered disk images to 'raw' format, sending the output to a new directory location. So the original disk images are _not_ altered in place.

Options

--connect URI

Connect to a non-default hypervisor. See virt-install(1) for details

Options

-i INPUT-FORMAT

--input-format INPUT-FORMAT

Input format. This should be auto-detected, but can be forced if necessary. Currently "vmx" and "ovf" are supported.

-D OUTPUT-FORMAT

--disk-format OUTPUT-FORMAT

Output disk format. The default is 'raw', so any encountered disk images will be converted to 'raw' format using qemu-img(1). Pass "none" if no conversion should be performed: in this case the images will just be copied to the specified --destination.

--destination DIRECTORY

The directory to send converted/copied disk images. If not specified, the hypervisor default is used, typically /var/lib/libvirt/images.

Options

--noautoconsole

Don't automatically try to connect to the guest console. The default behaviour is to launch virt-viewer(1) to display the graphical console, or to run the "virsh" "console" command to display the text console. Use of this parameter will disable this behaviour.

--print-xml

Print the generated libvirt XML, but do not perform any disk conversions or install/start the guest. This option implies --dry-run.

--dry-run

Proceed through the conversion process, but don't convert disks or actually write any converted files.

-h

--help

Show the help message and exit

--version

Show program's version number and exit

-q

--quiet

Avoid verbose output.

-d

--debug

Print debugging information

Examples

Run a fedora18 OVA archive:

  # virt-convert fedora18.ova

Run an extracted zip archive containing a centos6 .vmx and .vmdk file, converting the images to qcow2 format

  # virt-convert centos6/ --disk-format qcow2

Convert the specified .vmx file. Any references disk images must be in the same directory. Don't change the disk format. Move the disk images to /tmp

  # virt-convert foo.vmx --disk-format none --destination /tmp