4.1 Converting a Host

You can convert the operating system and application software on a computer to an Oracle VM hardware virtualized guest image using the Physical to Virtual (P2V) conversion utility. The P2V utility is included on Oracle VM Server CDs prior to the 3.3 release. The operating system must be one of the Oracle VM supported guest operating systems. See the Oracle VM Release Notes for a list of the supported guest operating systems. To perform a P2V conversion, the host computer must have a CPU that supports PAE (Physical Address Extension).

The P2V conversion process creates a virtual machine configuration file (vm.cfg), allows you to make some modifications in terms of sizing of the virtual machine hardware, and then replicates the physical image and transfers it over the network to a storage repository using Oracle VM Manager. The image on your physical computer is not changed in any way.

The P2V utility converts disks on the computer to virtual disk images. The first four virtual disk images are created as IDE disks (hda, hdb, hdc, and hdd) on the guest, using the original disk names. Up to seven additional disks are created as SCSI devices (sda, sdb, sdc, and so on). The disk entries in the vm.cfg file look similar to:

disk = ['file:System-sda.img,hda,w',
'file:System-sdb.img,hdb,w',
'file:System-sdc.img,hdc,w',
'file:System-sdd.img,hdd,w',
'file:System-sde.img,sda,w',
'file:System-sdf.img,sdb,w',
'file:System-sdg.img,sdc,w',
'file:System-sdh.img,sdd,w',
'file:System-sdi.img,sde,w',
'file:System-sdj.img,sdf,w',
'file:System-sdk.img,sdg,w',
]

The hardware virtualized guest created by the P2V utility must have its own network configuration. If you use the same network configuration as the original computer, a network clash may occur as two computers on the network may have the same IP and MAC address. When the guest is started, make sure the network device is detected and a new network device is configured.

You can run the P2V utility interactively, or as an automated process using a kickstart configuration file. When you use the P2V utility with a kickstart file, no user intervention is required.