CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org writes:
William Warren wrote:
Server 2k3 isn't a problem in that regard..:)
indeed, you said SBS 2003. More importantly, perhaps, moving a running windows systme into a different hardware environment (from a physical system to a virtual machine in this case) can be challenging. I'd seriously consider clean installing on the vmware environment, reinstalling any serverside applications you're using, then restoring a backup of the system state including active directory, along with any user data files (websites, exchange folders, SQL Server databases, etc etc).
Or, right after you download the free VMWare Server, download their free P2V Migration tool (also at www.vmware.com) and use that to migrate the server instance into VMWare Server.
The catch you have to deal with is, you need two physical systems not just one. Where do you install CentOS and VMWare, before you virtualize the SBS server? Not on the same disks, that's for sure...
If you have a whole weekend to do this over, use a workstation with lots of disk space as your "swing" server - install VMWare Server (any host OS will do) on that workstation. * Install the P2V tool on the workstation. * Use the P2V tool to migrate the SBS server into a VM on your workstation. * Shut down the original SBS server. Boot the SBS VM and *MAKE SURE IT WORKS 100%* before continuing. * Install linux on the original SBS server, overwriting the old SBS hard disks. * Install VMWare Server on your new linux server. * Shut down SBS VM on your workstation, and COPY the files over to the linux server. * Import the VM into VMWare Server on the linux server. * Boot the SBS VM... make sure it works before continuing. * Delete the VM from your workstation * Uninstall VMWare tools from your workstation * Done!
There are quite a few technotes in the VMWare knowledgebase about moving VMs from one server to another. The free "VMWare Server" product is closest to the "GSX Server" and/or "Workstation" products, so technical information on those two should apply (more-or-less) to the free edition too.
-Adam Thompson Divisional IT Department, St. James-Assiniboia School Division 150 Moray St., Winnipeg, MB, R3J 3A2 athompson@sjsd.net / tel: (204) 837-5886 x222 / fax: (204) 885-3178