Moving a virtual machine from VMWare Fusion to VMWare Server

I am running VMWare Fusion 2.0.x at home, and VMWare Server 2.0.x on my Ubuntu workstation at work. I wanted to move a virtual machine created on VMWare Fusion to VMWare Server.

Some gotchas that I’ve come across:

64-bit and VT mode

64-bit virtual machines are only supported on CPUs that have VT mode.

Fusion-only feature not handled gracefully by Server

If your .vmx file has the following line, remove it.

serial0.fileType = "thinprint"

VMWare Server does not support this feature, and crashes when you try to import the virtual machine.

Networking

After importing the virtual machine, when you power it on for the first time, VMWare will ask you whether you moved it or copied it. Tell VMWare that you moved it. Otherwise, you will have to manually update the ethernet adapter settings to get networking back up.

 
 
8 Comments. Leave a comment or send a Trackback.
  1. #1 • David said on August 20 2009:
     

    Thank you! This article helped me very much.

  2. #2 • Michael Cox said on August 31 2009:
     

    Perfect! I couldn’t figure out why my VMs couldn’t be added to inventory; that simple line

    serial0.fileType = “thinprint”

    was the problem. Thanks for the blog!

    Now if I can only get the remote console plug-in to install in Firefox 3.5 on my Mac I’ll be set. So far, no good.

  3. #3 • Michael Cox said on August 31 2009:
     

    I can’t my network adapter to connect. It lets me change the setting, but just keeps the red & white X on it – never connects.

  4. #4 • Andrew said on December 1 2009:
     

    Thanks! This advice was incredibly helpful.

  5. #5 • diogo said on February 9 2010:
     

    Sorry do you anything about the inverse i have a Vmachine 32bits from a Vmware Server 2.1 (Linux version) that i want to import to my mac (Vmware Fusion 3.0.1) . Any experience on that ?

  6. #6 • Kris said on February 2 2011:
     

    Removing serial0.fileType = “thinprint” worked like a charm. Thanks!!

  7. #7 • JCSANCHEZ said on May 10 2011:
     

    Excellent info, my VMWARE Server after doing this worked 100% adding the VM from MAC Fusion.Best regards

  8. #8 • Giamnis said on November 1 2011:
     

    Thank you very much for this….saved the day!!!!!

 

Comment: