Verifying and troubleshooting networking connections that may cause VMware Converter to fail

Products

• VMware
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Using VMware Converter fails
• Unable to complete all of the steps in the VMware Converter conversion wizard
• The conversion process fails between 1% and 2%
• The following errors may appear:
   
  • Unknown error returned by VMware Converter Agent
  • P2VError UFAD_SYSTEM_ERROR(Internal Error)
  • Failed to connect
  • Giving up trying to connect
  • Failed to establish Vim connection to hostname.domain.com.
Vmacore::Exception: The requested name is valid, but no data of the requested type was found.
  • Image processing task has failed with MethodFault::Exception: sysimage.fault.IncompatibilityFault
  • ERROR: Unable to open file %s
  • [NFC ERROR] NfcNewAuthdConnectionEx: Failed to connect to peer. Error: Host address lookup for server hostname.domain.com failed: The requested name is valid and was found in the database, but it does not have the correct associated data being resolved for
  • sysimage.fault.FileOpenError
  • Task failed: P2VError FILE_OPEN_FAILED
  • Unable to find server

Environment

VMware vCenter Converter

Resolution

For VMware Converter to function correctly, all servers involved in the process must be able to communicate with each other and resolve each other's hostnames to IP addresses. In particular, the source server must be able to communicate directly with both the server running VMware Converter (whether it is installed on a workstation or the vCenter Server), and the destination (ESXi server).

1. Ensure that DNS name resolution is working between the source and target servers involved in the conversion.
   
   To ensure DNS name resolution is working between these connections:
    
   1. Open a command prompt on the source server. For more information, see Opening a command or shell prompt.
   2. Use this command to test name resolution for each server, using separate commands each time:
      
      nslookup <hostname>
      
      where <hostname> is the host name of the ESXi host or destination server, or the VMware Converter server.
       
   3. If unable to resolve the DNS name to the IP address of the server, ensure the servers are registered in the DNS server on the network, or use the local hosts file to manually map the IP address to the DNS name.
       
2. If the destination server is an ESXi host, verify that ports 443 and 902 are open directly between the source server and the ESXi host. For more information, see Testing port connectivity with Telnet.
    
3. If the source and destination servers are on different non-connected networks, enable IP forwarding on the server running VMware Converter to pass traffic from the source to the destination. If VMware Converter is installed on Windows Server, use Routing and Remote Access services to accomplish forwarding.
    
4. If the source virtual machine is on an ESXi server managed by vCenter Server and the destination is a different vCenter Server, the connection may fail. To resolve this, connect the source ESXi server to the same vCenter Server as the destination.

Note: To reduce the number of variables to troubleshoot and network ports that are required, install VMware Converter on the source and specify an ESXi host as the destination directly, rather than the vCenter Server, where applicable.