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Chapter 1. Introducing V2V

1.1. Installing virt-v2v
V2V is an acronym for virtual to virtual, referring to the process of importing virtual machines from one virtualization platform to another. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Enterprise Linux are capable of performing V2V operations using the virt-v2v command.
virt-v2v
The virt-v2v command converts virtual machines from a foreign hypervisor to run on KVM, managed by Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization or libvirt. virt-v2v can currently convert Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 virtual machines running on Xen, KVM and VMware ESX. virt-v2v enables para-virtualized (virtio) drivers in the converted virtual machine if possible.
The following guest operating systems are supported by virt-v2v:
The following source hypervisors are supported by virt-v2v:

1.1. Installing virt-v2v

virt-v2v is run from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux host. It must be installed on the host.
Procedure 1.1. Installing virt-v2v
  1. Subscribe to RHN channel

    virt-v2v is available on Red Hat Network (RHN) in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v.6 for 64-bit x86_64) or Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v.6 for x86_64) channel. Ensure the system is subscribed to the appropriate channel before installing virt-v2v.
  2. Install pre-requisites

    If you are converting Windows virtual machines, you must install the libguestfs-winsupport and virtio-win packages. These packages provide support for NTFS and Windows para-virtualized block and network drivers. If you attempt to convert a virtual machine using NTFS without the libguestfs-winsupport package installed, the conversion will fail. If you attempt to convert a virtual machine running Windows without the virtio-win package installed, the conversion will fail giving an error message concerning missing files.
    The libguestfs-winsupport is available for RHEL Server 6 in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server V2V Tools for Windows (v. 6) channel, while the virtio-win package is available in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Supplementary (v. 6) channel. To install these packages, ensure that your system has the required permissions to subscribe to both channels and run the following command as root:
    rhn-channel -a rhel-x86_64-server-supplementary-6 --user USERNAME --password PASSWORD
    rhn-channel -a rhel-x86_64-server-v2vwin-6 --user USERNAME --password PASSWORD
    yum install libguestfs-winsupport virtio-win
  3. Install virt-v2v package

    As root, run the command:
    yum install virt-v2v
  4. Run virt-v2v as the root user from a Linux shell.