StarWind V2V Converter Overview (Part 1): Converting VMs to and from Oracle VirtualBox

Introduction

Hi, fellow IT admins and everyone interested in learning more about cool IT stuff. We live in a world where we continuously work with various virtualization platforms, and sometimes we need to migrate virtual machines (VMs) from one hypervisor to another. Obviously, different hypervisors have different VM file formats that are not cross-compatible. That’s where you need a so-called virtual-to-virtual (V2V) conversion tool. Some virtualization platform vendors offer their own tools, but they are often limited in terms of features or provide only one-way conversion – from source to their own platform.

That’s where StarWind V2V Converter steps in. It does exactly what its name suggests: it converts a VM from your current hypervisor into a format that your new hypervisor understands. What are the benefits? It’s free, universally compatible, and extremely easy to use.

This article is part of a 5-part series dedicated to VM conversions using StarWind V2V Converter. We will explore its latest updates and features, showcasing how this tool can help with various VM migration scenarios. Here’s what each part will cover:

Part 1 – Converting VMs to and from Oracle VirtualBox

Part 2 – Converting VMs to oVirt

Part 3 – Converting VMs to and from Proxmox

Part 4 – Performing a hot migration from Microsoft Hyper-V to VMware ESXi hosts

Part 5 – Converting VMs to QCOW2v3

By the way, if you’re eager to get started with these conversions, you can download the latest build of StarWind V2V Converter directly from our website.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into how StarWind V2V Converter can make your VM migrations smooth and efficient!

Conversion of Oracle VirtualBox VM

Before diving into all the nitty-gritty details, if you’re looking for the full process of converting VMs to and from Oracle VirtualBox, you can check out this video here:

This first article will focus on converting VMs to and from Oracle VirtualBox, a popular hypervisor known for its flexibility. Whether you’re moving VMs in or out of VirtualBox, StarWind V2V Converter has you covered.

Converting from Oracle VirtualBox

Like with any other options, the steps are very simple and straightforward:

Open StarWind V2V Converter and choose the “VirtualBox” option:

Now, enter the hostname or IP address and specify the credentials of the VirtualBox host:

After that, select the VM that you would like to convert. My VM is called “VMBox-article”:

IMPORTANT NOTE: The VM should be powered off before starting the conversion.

Now, we need to select the destination platform. In my case, that’s Microsoft Hyper-V Server:

Then we enter the IP address and credentials of the target Windows Server:

To finish the preparations for the conversion, we need to confirm the settings of the new VM:

After this, let’s just sit and wait until the conversion is completed. The conversion speed depends on the VM size, your storage speed, and network performance:

NOTE: In some cases, you could see the error message stating: “Incorrect credentials to VBox Host.”

To fix this error, you’ll need to do the following:

Oracle VB web server uses the 18083 port for communication, so check if your firewall is not blocking this port for incoming and outgoing connections. Also, check which network adapter the VB web server uses to create connections.

After this, open Command Prompt, go to the VirtualBox folder, and start the VirtualBox web service:

That’s it!

Converting to Oracle VirtualBox

The process of converting the VM to Oracle VirtualBox is identical to what you have already seen, so I will not repeat it.

Conclusion

That’s it for Part 1! As you can see, StarWind V2V Converter makes it incredibly easy to move VMs in and out of Oracle VirtualBox. In the next article, we’ll talk about converting VMs to oVirt, so stay tuned for more VM conversion goodness!