Export virtual machines with the vss-cli

The export virtual machine feature automates the Export process generating an Open Virtualization format (OVF) and then transferring the resulting files to your personal account space in VSKEY-STOR.

A virtual machine qualifies to be exported if:

Committed storage (not provisioned) is less than 300G.
Power state is Off.
No iso backing on CD/DVD unit

We use thin provisioning on the ITS Private Cloud to help avoid over-allocating storage space and save storage.

Thin provisioning uses just as much storage capacity as currently needed and then add the required amount of storage space at a later time. (Source: VMware).

This tutorial walks you through the process of exporting a given virtual machine.

Validate virtual machine

First, we need to double check if the committed_gb size is lower than 300GB. This can be done by executing the command vss-cli compute vm ls but modifying the output columns with the --columns option as follows:

vss-cli --columns "moref,name,folder.path,provisioned_gb,committed_gb,power_state" compute vm ls -f moref=vm-10342

moref      name                folder.path                 provisioned_gb    committed_gb  power_state
---------  ------------------  ------------------------  ----------------  --------------  -------------
vm-123456  2210P-FrontEnd-1u0  Public > Customer 123456                60           19.67  poweredOn

In this particular case, we can proceed since the committed space is lower than 300GB.

If the virtual machine power_state is poweredOn, shut it down by sending a shutdown signal through the OS via VMware Tools or a hard power off as follows:

vss-cli compute vm set <name-or-vm-id> state shutdown

Host Name: ubuntu (Ubuntu Linux (64-bit))
IP Address: 192.168.2.100, fe80::250:56ff:fe92:d463
Are you sure you want to change the state from "running to shutdown" of the above VM? [y/N]: y

Finally, verify if the VM’s CD/DVD unit is not backed by an ISO image file:

vss-cli compute vm get <name-or-vm-id> cd

label           backing    connected
--------------  ---------  ------------
CD/DVD drive 1  client     disconnected

Execute vss-cli compute vm set <name-or-vm-id> cd <unit> --iso client if an ISO image is shown in CD backing.

Export virtual machine

Run vss-cli compute vm set <name-or-vm-id> export to submit an export task. The command does not require any argument or options.

Once the command is executed, a VM Export Request is created and all related activity including export status is recorded in it. To check the status, execute vss-cli request export get <request-id>.

The request object holds more attributes, however the above listed are more important for this example. status=Processed tells us that the request has been completed. transferred=yes indicates that resulting files were successfully transferred to your VSKEY-STOR space. To confirm, you could either go to a web browser and open VSKEY-STOR and sign in or execute vss-cli stor ls <vm-id> and you should get something like:

Download virtual machine export

To download the files you could either go to a web browser and open VSKEY-STOR and sign in, go to the <vm_name-vm_id> folder and download the files or execute vss-cli stor dl <vm_name-vm_id>/<file> as follows:

Alternatively, you could just launch the web UI via the la command and browse the ut-vss bucket to download the files via your web browser:

That’s it, at this point the OVF and disks are ready to be imported to a desired platform.

Virtualization, Servers and Storage

Export virtual machines with the vss-cli

Analytics

Validate virtual machine

Export virtual machine

Download virtual machine export

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