搭载Ubuntu 18.04LTS的物理服务器转VMware 8虚拟机的可行方案咨询

Hey there, sorry to hear you're stuck trying to convert your Ubuntu 18.04 LTS physical server to a VMware 8 VM—let’s go through some proven methods that’ve worked for other folks facing the same headaches with Converter, dd, and StarWind:

1. Clonezilla 离线克隆法（最稳定的通用方案） #

Clonezilla is go-to for physical-to-virtual conversions because it handles disk imaging reliably without vendor lock-in:

• Grab a Clonezilla bootable USB, boot your physical server from it, and enter the Clonezilla environment.
• Choose the device-image mode, then back up your 500GB system disk to an external storage drive (like a USB HDD) as an image file.
• In VMware 8, create a new Ubuntu 18.04 VM with hardware specs matching your physical server (CPU cores, RAM, and a virtual disk of at least 500GB).
• Boot the new VM from the Clonezilla USB, then restore the backup image to the VM’s virtual disk.
• After restoration, fix the GRUB bootloader: boot into Ubuntu’s recovery mode, launch a root shell, then run these commands (adjust /dev/sda1 if your system partition is different):

  mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
  grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda
  update-grub
  

• Reboot the VM, and you should have a working clone.

2. VMware Converter 故障排除优化版 #

If you still want to use VMware Converter (since it’s native to your environment), try these fixes for common errors:

• Prep the physical server first: Shut down all non-essential services (databases, web servers), uninstall hardware-specific drivers (like NVIDIA/AMD GPU drivers), and run a file system check with fsck /dev/sda1 (boot from a Live CD first to unmount the partition).
• Use cold cloning: Instead of converting a running system, shut down the physical server, boot it from VMware Converter’s bootable ISO, and run the conversion from there—this avoids file locks and running service conflicts.
• Split the conversion: If the full disk conversion fails, convert only the system partition first, then migrate your data separately using rsync (e.g., rsync -avz /data/ user@vm-ip:/mnt/data/ after setting up the VM’s data partition).

3. DD 精准迁移法（修正之前的操作误区） #

If your earlier dd attempt failed, you probably missed handling the bootloader or VMware’s disk format. Here’s the correct workflow:

• Boot your physical server from an Ubuntu Live CD, making sure not to mount the system disk.
• Connect an external storage drive, then create a full disk image with dd:

  dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/external/ubuntu_server.img bs=4M status=progress
  

• In VMware, create a new VM with a blank 500GB+ virtual disk. Then use VMware’s vmkfstools to convert the raw img file to VMware’s VMDK format:

  vmkfstools -i ubuntu_server.img -d thin ubuntu_server.vmdk
  

  (The -d thin flag uses thin provisioning to save storage space.)
• Attach the converted VMDK to your new VM, boot it, and fix the GRUB bootloader using the same steps as the Clonezilla method.

Key Post-Conversion Tips #

• Always back up your physical server’s data first before attempting any conversion—better safe than sorry!
• Once the VM is up and running, install VMware Tools for better performance:

  # For server edition
  apt-get install open-vm-tools
  # For desktop edition
  apt-get install open-vm-tools-desktop
  

备注：内容来源于stack exchange，提问作者Nithin