How to migrate Xen guest virtual machine to linux KVM virtualization

Because xen virtualization will be replace by kvm on rhel6 so I have to migrate my server that running on xen virtual machine to kvm. after search on internet that have many documents and method to convert xen guest to kvm, I test migrate by manual method which is working well and easy to migrate.

My environment, I am running rhel5 xen kernel 2.6.18-92 guest and migrate to host running on the rhel5 kernel 2.6.18-168

Here are steps to migrate to kvm virtualization

1. comment HWADDR line on /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-

2. change xvc0 to ttyS0 (if exist) in /etc/inittab, /etc/securetty, /boot/grub/grub.conf

3. change /dev/xvda (xvdb etc..) to /dev/hda (in case no virtio drivers or /dev/vda with virtio) in /boot/grub/device.map, /etc/fstab

if you map device with partition label (LABEL=SWAP-sda2 /swap in fstab for example) you can change partition lable with command "e2label " to match new partition

4. change to boot with standard kernel, modify from DEFAULTKERNEL=kernel-xen in /etc/sysconfig/kernel to DEFAULTKERNEL=kernel

you have to yum kernel with "yum install kernel" or "yum localinstall "

change /etc/modprobe.conf replace xen with virtio

build new ramdisk with "mkinitrd -v -f --with=virtio_pci --builtin=xenblk path-to-initrd kernel-version"

5. on kvm virtual machine host make it boot with default kernel by install kernel (if still be xenkernel) and change DEFAULTKERNEL=kernel

6. run #setenforce 0

7. create network bridge on kvm host

8. copy image from xen host to new kvm host

9. create new kvm virtual guest with virt-manager (specify copy image path) and abort when it start new installation (use virt-manager only for create xml file)

10. modify xml file with "virsh edit " replace dev=hda to dev=vda and bus=ide to bus=virtio (in case use virtio)


It's done. start new kvm guest, remove or configure new device in kvm virtualization guest. now you already migrate Xen guest virtual machine to linux KVM virtualization