Convert XEN image files to VirtualBox image files

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Introduction

Oracle xVM VirtualBox is an X86 virtualization software package.
Compared with other established commercial virtualization software such as Xen or VMware, VirtualBox lacks some features, but in turn provides others such as running virtual machines remotely over the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), iSCSI support and USB support with remote devices over RDP.

It is possible and easy to convert XEN or VMware images to images supported by VirtualBox.
If it's a Windows guest then prepare for bluescreens. Windows just doesn't like any hardware changes...

Execution

Using VirtualBox run:

# VBoxManage convertdd the_disk.img the_disk.vdi

You can make the vdi dynamic if you want:

# VBoxManage modifyvdi the_disk.vdi compact

Example:

# VBoxManage convertdd netbsd.img netbsd.vdi
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 2.1.4
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Converting from raw image file="linux.img" to file="linux.vdi"...
Creating dynamic image with size 21474836480 bytes (20480MB)...

Resources

• VirtualBox's official website
• VirtualBox on Wikipedia

That's all folks.
Marcin

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