Parallels

Resolution

Although many third-party virtual appliance are constructed and formatted differently than Parallels Virtual Appliances, you can usually convert a virtual appliance for VMware, Microsoft or another platform into Parallels one with very minimal effort.

Step One. Hard Disk Images

Use Parallels Transporter to convert the virtual appliance’s hard disk images to a Parallels-compatible format. If you do not have Parallels Transporter, you can download it for free here.

Step Two. Configuring Boot Loaders

You may skip this step if one or more of the next is true:

• The virtual appliance has an IDE boot disk

• Virtual appliance’s guest OS is Linux with kernel newer than 2.6.18

• Virtual appliance's guest OS is Windows 2000, 2003, or XP.

If the virtual appliance has an SCSI boot disk, you have to change disk interface type from SCSI to IDE, and reinstall the boot loader.

For a Linux guest OS, see below how to do this:

1. Download Auxiliary virtual appliance from Parallels Virtual Appliances Directory (You may also use any Linux-based virtual appliance with GRUB or LILO loader installed).

2. Add the converted virtual disk to the Auxiliary virtual appliance as an additional disk. For example: IDE 0:1.

3. Start the Auxiliary virtual appliance.

4. Detect which disk and partition has been bootable in virtual appliance. Let it be /dev/hdb1.

5. Mount the partition to some mount point (mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt).

6. Replace boot loader on the converted disk.

   1. If you use the Auxiliary virtual appliance, run convert /dev/hdb1.

   2. If you do not use the Auxiliary virtual appliance:

      1. Replace root=/dev/sd* by root=/dev/hd* in configuration files, typically: /mnt/boot/grub/grub.conf or /mnt/boot/grub/menu.lst.

      2. Replace /dev/sd* by /dev/hd* in /mnt/etc/mtab and /mnt/etc/fstab.

      3. Remove /mnt/boot/grub/device.map.

      4. Install loader by command grub-install –root-directory=/mnt /dev/hdb.

You can now shut down Auxiliary virtual appliance. Create a new virtual machine with the same configuration as the virtual appliance has, and connect the converted disk as a boot disk to the new virtual machine. Start the new Parallels virtual machine.

Step Three. Updating Device Drivers

Depending on the virtual appliance’s configuration, you may need to replace the OS kernel or some of its components. Because Parallels uses the Realtek 8029(AS) network adapter, you have to install a driver for it.

For Linux guest OS. If the virtual appliance has a standard kernel with multiple modules, the necessary driver will usually be installed automatically. If the necessary driver was not installed automatically, you need to install it manually. Please refer to http://www.kernel.org/ for more information about this.

For Windows guest OS just install Parallels Tools to make sure that proper drivers are installed.

Step Four. Parallels Virtual Appliance requirements satisfaction

Now you should make sure that new virtual appliance meets all requirements for Parallels Virtual Appliances as described in Parallels Virtual Appliance Building Guide.