How to import physical or virtual machines to Incus instances

Incus provides a tool (incus-migrate) to create an Incus instance based on an existing disk or image.

You can run the tool on any Linux machine. It connects to an Incus server and creates a blank instance, which you can configure during or after the migration. The tool then copies the data from the disk or image that you provide to the instance.

incus-migrate can import images in raw, qcow2, and vmdk file formats.

Note

If you want to configure your new instance during the migration process, set up the entities that you want your instance to use before starting the migration process.

By default, the new instance will use the entities specified in the default profile. You can specify a different profile (or a profile list) to customize the configuration. See How to use profiles for more information. You can also override Instance options, the storage pool to be used and the size for the storage volume, and the network to be used.

Alternatively, you can update the instance configuration after the migration is complete.

The tool can create both containers and virtual machines:

  • When creating a container, you must provide a disk or partition that contains the root file system for the container. For example, this could be the / root disk of the machine or container where you are running the tool.

  • When creating a virtual machine, you must provide a bootable disk, partition or image. This means that just providing a file system is not sufficient, and you cannot create a virtual machine from a container that you are running. It is also not possible to create a virtual machine from the physical machine that you are using to do the migration, because the migration tool would be using the disk that it is copying. Instead, you could provide a bootable image, or a bootable partition or disk that is currently not in use.

    Tip

    If you want to convert a Windows VM from a foreign hypervisor (not from QEMU/KVM with Q35/virtio-scsi), you must install the virtio-win drivers to your Windows. Otherwise, your VM won’t boot.

    Expand to see how to integrate the required drivers to your Windows VM Install the required tools on the host:

    1. Install virt-v2v version >= 2.3.4 (this is the minimal version that supports the --block-driver option).

    2. Install the virtio-win package, or download the virtio-win.iso image and put it into the /usr/share/virtio-win folder.

    3. You might also need to install rhsrvany.

    Now you can use virt-v2v to convert images from a foreign hypervisor to raw images for Incus and include the required drivers:

    # Example 1. Convert a vmdk disk image to a raw image suitable for incus-migrate
sudo virt-v2v --block-driver virtio-scsi -o local -of raw -os ./os -i vmx ./test-vm.vmx
# Example 2. Convert a QEMU/KVM qcow2 image and integrate virtio-scsi driver
sudo virt-v2v --block-driver virtio-scsi -o local -of raw -os ./os -if qcow2 -i disk test-vm-disk.qcow2

    You can find the resulting image in the os directory and use it with incus-migrate on the next steps.

Complete the following steps to migrate an existing machine to an Incus instance:

  1. Download the bin.linux.incus-migrate tool (bin.linux.incus-migrate.aarch64 or bin.linux.incus-migrate.x86_64) from the Assets section of the latest Incus release.

  2. Place the tool on the machine that you want to use to create the instance. Make it executable (usually by running chmod u+x bin.linux.incus-migrate).

  3. Make sure that the machine has rsync installed. If it is missing, install it (for example, with sudo apt install rsync).

  4. Run the tool:

    sudo ./bin.linux.incus-migrate

    The tool then asks you to provide the information required for the migration.

    Tip

    As an alternative to running the tool interactively, you can provide the configuration as parameters to the command. See ./bin.linux.incus-migrate --help for more information.

    1. Specify the Incus server URL, either as an IP address or as a DNS name.

      Note

      The Incus server must be exposed to the network. If you want to import to a local Incus server, you must still expose it to the network. You can then specify 127.0.0.1 as the IP address to access the local server.

    2. Check and confirm the certificate fingerprint.

    3. Choose a method for authentication (see Remote API authentication).

      For example, if you choose using a certificate token, log on to the Incus server and create a token for the machine on which you are running the migration tool with incus config trust add. Then use the generated token to authenticate the tool.

    4. Choose whether to create a container or a virtual machine. See About containers and VMs.

    5. Specify a name for the instance that you are creating.

    6. Provide the path to a root file system (for containers) or a bootable disk, partition or image file (for virtual machines).

    7. For containers, optionally add additional file system mounts.

    8. For virtual machines, specify whether secure boot is supported.

    9. Optionally, configure the new instance. You can do so by specifying profiles, directly setting configuration options or changing storage or network settings.

      Alternatively, you can configure the new instance after the migration.

    10. When you are done with the configuration, start the migration process.

    Expand to see an example output for importing to a container
    user@host:~$ sudo ./bin.linux.incus-migrate
    Please provide Incus server URL: https://192.0.2.7:8443Certificate fingerprint: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxok (y/n)? y 1) Use a certificate token2) Use an existing TLS authentication certificate3) Generate a temporary TLS authentication certificatePlease pick an authentication mechanism above: 1Please provide the certificate token: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Remote Incus server:  Hostname: bar  Version: 5.4 Would you like to create a container (1) or virtual-machine (2)?: 1Name of the new instance: fooPlease provide the path to a root filesystem: /Do you want to add additional filesystem mounts? [default=no]: Instance to be created:  Name: foo  Project: default  Type: container  Source: / Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 3Please specify config keys and values (key=value ...): limits.cpu=2 Instance to be created:  Name: foo  Project: default  Type: container  Source: /  Config:    limits.cpu: "2" Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 4Please provide the storage pool to use: defaultDo you want to change the storage size? [default=no]: yesPlease specify the storage size: 20GiB Instance to be created:  Name: foo  Project: default  Type: container  Source: /  Storage pool: default  Storage pool size: 20GiB  Config:    limits.cpu: "2" Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 5Please specify the network to use for the instance: incusbr0 Instance to be created:  Name: foo  Project: default  Type: container  Source: /  Storage pool: default  Storage pool size: 20GiB  Network name: incusbr0  Config:    limits.cpu: "2" Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 1Instance foo successfully created
    Expand to see an example output for importing to a VM
    user@host:~$ sudo ./bin.linux.incus-migrate
    Please provide Incus server URL: https://192.0.2.7:8443Certificate fingerprint: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxok (y/n)? y 1) Use a certificate token2) Use an existing TLS authentication certificate3) Generate a temporary TLS authentication certificatePlease pick an authentication mechanism above: 1Please provide the certificate token: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Remote Incus server:  Hostname: bar  Version: 5.4 Would you like to create a container (1) or virtual-machine (2)?: 2Name of the new instance: fooPlease provide the path to a root filesystem: ./virtual-machine.imgDoes the VM support UEFI Secure Boot? [default=no]: no Instance to be created:  Name: foo  Project: default  Type: virtual-machine  Source: ./virtual-machine.img  Config:    security.secureboot: "false" Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 3Please specify config keys and values (key=value ...): limits.cpu=2 Instance to be created:  Name: foo  Project: default  Type: virtual-machine  Source: ./virtual-machine.img  Config:    limits.cpu: "2"    security.secureboot: "false" Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 4Please provide the storage pool to use: defaultDo you want to change the storage size? [default=no]: yesPlease specify the storage size: 20GiB Instance to be created:  Name: foo  Project: default  Type: virtual-machine  Source: ./virtual-machine.img  Storage pool: default  Storage pool size: 20GiB  Config:    limits.cpu: "2"    security.secureboot: "false" Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 5Please specify the network to use for the instance: incusbr0 Instance to be created:  Name: foo  Project: default  Type: virtual-machine  Source: ./virtual-machine.img  Storage pool: default  Storage pool size: 20GiB  Network name: incusbr0  Config:    limits.cpu: "2"    security.secureboot: "false" Additional overrides can be applied at this stage:1) Begin the migration with the above configuration2) Override profile list3) Set additional configuration options4) Change instance storage pool or volume size5) Change instance network Please pick one of the options above [default=1]: 1Instance foo successfully created

  5. When the migration is complete, check the new instance and update its configuration to the new environment. Typically, you must update at least the storage configuration (/etc/fstab) and the network configuration.