I'm trying using this tutorial https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Mov...ving_into_a_VM To move one my server into a VMWare virtual machine, i succeed to export the images and open it into ESXI but when i chroot into the VM, the VM cannot see any partition, Fdisk command failed.

As the rsync command exclude the proc folder is there any solution to fix that?

There are more than a few ways to do it.

If you insist on using vmware then consider their method. Example. https://www.nakivo.com/blog/vmware-p...e-walkthrough/

Not sure what way I'd suggest to clone to virtual. Generally I do a copy of entire disk to a virtual hard drive after making the virtual machine config.

As to your client state I can't guess yet. Almost any issue can be the cause.

Some distributions install a virtual optimized kernel in VMs.

For myself when I transferred a Linux who's kernel I compile, I will run command: lspci -vk from a Linux Live in VMWare to get a list of all kernel drivers in use and compile a second kernel with support and add it to the boot menu. If your distribution has different kernel for virtualization, install it prior to transfer.

Since I typically have basic partition layout: ESP, Root, Swap. I adjust the size of Root with Gparted Live ( usually shrink it ) and make an image of it, restore the size if desired.

In VMWare I create a new 64MB EFI system partition, same size Root partition as the image, Swap partition. Format the ESP and Swap, then paste the Root image into it's partition. Boot to live CD, adjust /etc/fstab commenting out Data drives, change UUID of ESP entry etc. Then chroot into Root to reinstall Grub (which I find has to be done whether you copied the ESP or not). Reboot and boot the appropriate kernel.

EDIT: Then if needed, expand the virtual disk and run Gparted Live to adjust partitions, it's easy to kill Swap to expand Root and create/format new Swap behind it.

@Brains,

I should admit that i didn't succeed to implement your suggestions. Because i d'ont rally know how to compile a second kernel and add it to the boot menu. I look from the physical machine and that is the ppartition on boot disk.

I tried this tutorial to correct the grub https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Co...244895#2844710

But after it the boot partition could not be mounted anymore. It's when i try to understand that i notice that my boot partition is EFI.

That's just my approach, get it ready to minimize the amount of work from single user/live mode in VMWare to get it booteed. I'm an Image freak, I'm always making backups of my OS partitions, not the ESP. On my EFI system I can create new partitions somewhere else on the drive and paste a Linux OS image in it and boot it without going into chroot/single user/live mode.

However, not with VMWare. I back up my important VMs the same way, take a compressed image of it. I've had Gentoo Linux in VMWare, it's folder quickly becomes the same size as the allocated disk size. The Gentoo only used 12GB of the 30GB disk, all the tmp space it used to compile software is seen as used space by VMWare. So it's folder constantly grows to to max allocated disk size. The backup software I use don't include un-allocated disk space, the image file size is about 5GB as a result. I then create a new VM and use partition software live to create a new ESP and a partition same size or larger as the partition the image came from, then with the backup software, plaster the image in it, then boot a live Linux to reinstall grub, then she boots, and it's back to 12GB in size.

With VMWare, I've found, one way or another, whether you created a new ESP or carried the original as part of the image, you will need to reinstall grub from a live environment.

You can take your chances with the current kernel, some distributions like Fedora have a very inclusive kernel with great support for virtualization either as host or guest.

The image software I use is not free and I won't recommend it as such as it also has a learning curve. What I can recommend since you only have two partitions:
Boot Gparted Live and shrink your ext4 root partition to bare minimum and note the size. Boot Linux live and make a "dd" bit for bit image of the / partition only using 4K bite size in the command, then boot Gparted Live and expand the partition back to it's original size, everything should be normal with the installed OS.

Make a new VM allocating desired "max" disk size, boot Gparted Live in the VM to create a new ESP at 64MB because no other OS will be adding boot files in it, it don't need be larger. And a partition same size as the shrunk partition size the image came from, the size you noted. Then boot Linux Live to dd the image into the partition, mount it and the ESP partition, and fix /etc/fstab to include the proper UUID for the partitions, reinstall grub, boot Gparted Live to expand the partition to max allocated size.

Is your disk a virtual disk or a direct physical hard disk? If it is the latter, I'm afraid you can't fdisk