Knowledge Base

Disable the powerOffHelperVm flag in converter-agent.xml file:

1. Browse for the converter-agent.xml file in the following locations:

• If Converter Standalone runs on a Windows system, go to %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\.
• If Converter Standalone is running on a Linux system, go to /etc/vmware-converter/.

2. Open the converter-agent.xml file in a text editor and change the powerOffHelperVm flag from true to false.
3. Restart Converter Standalone agent.

• If Converter Standalone agent runs on a Windows system, open the Services section in the Microsoft Management Console, find the VMware Converter Agent service and restart it.
• If Converter Standalone agent runs on a Linux system, find the Converter Agent process by running ps -axu|grep "converter-agent.xml" and terminate it. The Converter Standalone agent starts automatically the next time you initiate a conversion task.

Alternatively, instead of restarting Converter Standalone agent, you can reboot the system to make the changes to converter-agent.xml take effect.

Note: Care should be taken when this option is enabled and the the helper VM network is configured to use a static IP address. After the conversion completes the helper VM will retain the statically configured IP since it is still running. Thus any subsequent Linux P2V tasks cannot use the same static IP until this helper VM is powered off, or at least has its network interface disabled.

Disabling the powerOffHelperVm flag is useful when the following Converter agent flag is enabled: useSourcePasswordInHelperVm. This allows users to log in to the helper virtual machine after conversion. See Enabling Logging in to Helper Virtual Machine During Conversion of Powered-On Linux Sources for detailed instructions.