Today I was virtualizing a Linux server using the latest version of the VMware’s vCenter Converter Standalone and I had a problem: the Helper VM, that is the virtual machine created by the Converter to be the target of the virtualization process, had no default gateway and thus it was unreachable from the other VLANs (including the one the server running the Converter is connected to).
When I opened the VM console, I could read this error message during the boot:
To be able to manually configure the gateway, I needed a console access to the VM and this is by default prevented by the Converter. You can enable the console login (KB from VMware) modifying the converter-worker.xml file (located at %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone) and setting useSourcePasswordInHelperVM to true:
Restart the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Worker service:
If you relaunch the virtualization job, now the Helper VM is accessible using the root account and the password of the source physical server.
To manually configure the gateway, after having logged in, type the command:
route add default gw GATEWAY
change GATEWAY with the real IP address of the gateway of the VLAN the Helper VM is connected to.