Converting Virtualbox machines to ESXi

Virtualbox is an open source virtualization platform from Oracle that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.  Its a free and easy way to run machines on existing operating systems.  ESXi is a bare-metal hypervisor from VMWare, available for free with limited features.

Virtual machines in one platform can not directly be run in the other.  This set of instructions from Sysxperts explains how to convert a Virtualbox formatted VM to something that can run in ESXi.

1. Used ‘Export Appliance’ option from File Menu in VirtualBox
2. Uploaded the vmdk file to one of my ESX datastores /vmfs/volumes/local_ds1/DC1
3. opened up putty session to ESX 4 u1 server and navigated to the datastore /vmfs/volumes/local_ds1/DC1
4. [root@esxlab2 DC1]#vmkfstools -i DC1.vmdk -d thin DC1clone.vmdk
5. Created new Virtual Machine and utilized option to connect to existing storage and pointed to my DC1clone.vmdk
6. Deleted original DC1.vmdk to clean up