Disclaimer: This is a long-ass process, and should really only be done if there are no other options.

Summary of Operations

• Backup VM in question
  • Clone the VM is the quicker way to create a full backup (not a snapshot)
    • But creating a backup through the GUI is slower, because Proxmox tries to compress and repackage it.
• Export disk via Proxmox shell to local storage Create backup of VM
  • If your install disk is small, you will likely need to add USB storage and configure it to accept backups.
  • Shutdown the VM, then either through the GUI or with vzdump, create a "stop" backup to the drive
• Extract the .vma backup on ProxMox
  • .vma is proprietary to Proxmox, and must be extracted with their OS
    • Actually, you can run the python tool VMA extractor to extract the VM Archive format.
  • vma extract /path/to/backup.vma /path/to/destination/folder
    • This command will create a new folder; if the folder already exists, it will complain.
• Use SCP/SFTP/USB/etc. to copy the file to your local computer
  • Pulling from ProxMox: scp -r ProxMoxUser@ProxMoxIP:/path/to/source /path/to/destination
    • Reminder: If you cancel a transfer, it doesn't delete the files you were copying.
    • sshd is likely already configured on ProxMox, so this will probably be easier
  • Sending from ProxMox: scp -r /path/to/source TargetUser@TargetIP:/path/to/destination
    • Will require you to configure your machine as an SSH host.
• Install QEMU if necessary and run the VM.
  • Running the VM without spice
  • You should be able to run the VM without converting it; just set format=raw and it should work.
  • Here's an example of a command to run the VM (without Spice), based on my extraction:

qemu-system-x86_64 \
    -drive file=/home/max/Downloads/extract/disk-drive-efidisk0.raw,format=raw,if=none,id=efidisk0 \
    -device ide-hd,drive=efidisk0 \
    -drive file=/home/max/Downloads/extract/disk-drive-tpmstate0-backup.raw,format=raw,if=none,id=tpmstate0 \
    -device ide-hd,drive=tpmstate0 \
    -drive file=/home/max/Downloads/extract/disk-drive-virtio0.raw,format=raw,if=none,id=virtio0 \
    -device virtio-blk-pci,drive=virtio0 \
    -m 16384 \
    -smp cores=8 \
    -enable-kvm \
    -cpu host \
    -bios /usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd \
    -vga virtio

Metadata

Sources

VMA - Proxmox VE
VMA archive restore outside of Proxmox | Page 3 | Proxmox Support Forum

Tags

#tools_Prox