Copy files

[fborges555]

Hi gurus.

New to VMware, I would like to copy the essential files for a vm box, I have read but want to make sure I have the correct ones and not missing anyone

I need:

nvram

vmx

vmdk

do I need any other one? I have no snapshot on the vm

thanks for any help

[daphnissov]

Rather than manually hunting for and copying files, you should consider exporting the VM as an OVF in which case all of the necessary files will be exported for you. Please search online for articles and procedures how to do this. It's very well covered.

[Scott Vessey]

Which VMware product are you using?

[fborges555]

Hi D/S

Thanks for jumping in, I am aware there are  tools such as (connvault/veeam), just to mentioned a few, but as I am learning , I would like to know the basis of what conforms a vm, what are the most important files and what are not so important, yeah I have read about export machine to OVF, but was curious of to what file forms a vm on a folder in a datastore.

vcenter 6.0.0

Thanks

[Scott Vessey]

This should help your understanding: Virtual Machine Files

[continuum]

For a VM that can be started right away you need the following files:

- the vmx file

- for each virtual disk you need to have the small vmdk descriptorfile (name.vmdk - size about 500 bytes) and the associated flat.vmdk - the name of the flat.vmdk is referenced in the small descriptor vmdk)

- if the VM has snapshots you need all the vmdk descriptorfiles (name-00000*.vmdk plus the associated delta / sesparse vmdks - those names again can be looked up in the descriptor vmdk)

Files like name.nvram or the *.vswp will be recreated if they are missing.

In worst case you can recreate all eventually missing files other than the flat.vmdk and (if snapshots are used - the delta / sesparse.vmdks)

If the vmx-file is missing you can recreate it by extracting acopy from the last working vmware.log -the last working vmware.log can also be used to recreate missing vmdk descriptorfiles.

By the way - there are different opinions about the OVF/OVA export functions - IMHO that is a sunny weather tool ...

If you want full control I suggest to copy the really essential files via WinSCP

[Scott Vessey]

Moderator: Moved to the vSphere area, this thread did not belong in the Windows guest area.

[wernerslima]

If you need to do a copy from one site to other, try to copy all the files that has on the VM BOX, even the files were used or not, but the better way is to export as ovf or ova, to understand more what the files do on ESXi 6.0 try to see this link Virtual Machine Files .