Before you use Server Migration Center (SMC), you must have an Alibaba Cloud account, complete real-name verification, and activate Resource Access Management (RAM) to grant the required permissions to SMC.
Prepare your Alibaba Cloud account
To prepare your Alibaba Cloud account:
Register an account on the Alibaba Cloud website.
Ensure that your account balance is at least CNY 100. The balance can be from top-ups or coupons.
NoteSMC is a free service, but you are charged for the underlying ECS resources used during migration. For more information, see Billing.
Ensure that you have completed real-name verification for your account.
You can complete the verification in one of the following ways:
Method 1: Go to the Account Verification page and follow the instructions.
Method 2: Log on to the SMC console. If you have not completed the verification, you will be prompted to complete it.
Activate RAM and grant permissions
Authorize SMC: You must grant SMC permission to access your cloud resources. Ensure that you have activated RAM. Log on to the SMC console and follow the prompts to complete the authorization. To the right of Cloud resource access authorization, click Go to authorize, and then click Agree to authorize in the pop-up dialog box.
Authorize a RAM user: If you are using a RAM user, you must log on to the RAM console with your Alibaba Cloud account and attach the
AliyunSMCFullAccesspolicy to the RAM user.
Activate snapshot service
SMC creates a snapshot of the source server during migration. Ensure that you have activated the snapshot service. Log on to the SMC console and activate the service as prompted.
To the right of Activate snapshot service, click Go to activate.
Back up data
Create a snapshot to back up your data. This helps prevent data loss from system failures or other issues.
Select migration network
SMC supports server migration over the Internet or a virtual private cloud (VPC). You must ensure the network connectivity between the source server and the intermediate instance or destination instance.
Server migration over the Internet: The source server must be able to access the Internet. The intermediate instance or destination instance must allow the source server to access ports 8080 and 8703. The data of the source server is transmitted to the intermediate instance or destination instance over the Internet. By default, this network type is used to transmit data.
Server migration over a VPC: You must connect the source server to an Alibaba Cloud VPC. The data of the source server is transmitted to the intermediate instance or destination instance over the VPC. You must specify a VPC and a vSwitch during migration. If a server in a self-managed data center, a VM, or a third-party cloud server can connect to a VPC in an Alibaba Cloud region, we recommend that you use SMC to migrate the server over the VPC. Compared with server migration over the Internet, server migration over a VPC is more efficient and stable. You can use VPN Gateway, Express Connect, or Smart Access Gateway to connect the source server to a VPC. For more information, see Connect a VPC to a data center or another cloud and Migrate servers over a private network.
If your network can connect to a VPC, we recommend that you select Private network transfer for Network Type when you create a migration job. A private network provides faster and more stable data transfer than a public network.
Endpoints and ports
During migration, ensure that the source server, intermediate instance, and SMC service endpoints are accessible.
Ensure that the source server can access the following endpoints:
SMC client storage address:
Default public domain: https://p2v-tools.oss-cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com
Default public domain (for command-line import or client import by generating and entering an activation code, or entering an AK/SK):
Default public domain: https://smc.aliyuncs.com (server IP addresses: 101.37.132.1, 47.111.202.72).
Private domain (private network migration):
Activation code private domain: https://.axt.aliyun.com (accessible only from within Alibaba Cloud ECS).
AK/SK private domain: https://smc.vpc-proxy.aliyuncs.com (accessible only from within Alibaba Cloud ECS).
NoteBy default, SMC domains use HTTPS protocol on port 443. HTTP protocol on port 80 might not be supported.
If you can directly access an Alibaba Cloud VPC from your on-premises data center, virtual machine environment, or cloud host, we recommend using SMC's private network migration solution. Private network migration is faster and more stable than public network migration, improving migration efficiency.
Open ports
During migration, the SMC client communicates with the intermediate instance over port
8080and transfers disk data to the data disks of the intermediate instance over port8703. Therefore, you must open ports8080and8703for outbound traffic on your source server.NoteYou do not need to open any inbound ports on the source server, but you must allow outbound traffic to the preceding public endpoints and ports.
Check your local network configuration and any intermediate network devices, such as firewalls or proxies, for restrictions on outbound IP addresses or ports.
Check if Cloud Firewall is enabled. If it is, verify that its policies, such as internet boundary or VPC boundary firewalls, do not block the source server from accessing ports
8080and8703on the intermediate instance. For more information, see Firewall switch.
Source server environment and requirements
Linux systems
Ensure that the system time is synchronized with the standard time for its time zone. This helps prevent SMC client registration failures.
Check SELinux.
On CentOS and Red Hat-based systems, ensure that SELinux is disabled. If it is not, use one of the following methods to disable it:
Run the
setenforce 0command to temporarily disable it.Modify the
/etc/selinux/configfile and setSELINUX=disabledto permanently disable SELinux. For more information, see Enable or disable SELinux.
Check the GRUB bootloader.
Some operating systems with earlier kernels, such as CentOS 5, Red Hat 5, and Debian 7, and Amazon Linux systems require you to upgrade GRUB to version 2.02 or later. For more information, see How do I install GRUB on a Linux server?.
Check application licenses.
After migration to Alibaba Cloud, the underlying hardware of the server changes. This may invalidate application licenses bound to specific hardware, so you must verify that they remain valid.
You must also perform specific checks based on your source server's environment.
If your source server is a physical server, check its virtualization applications. Standard Alibaba Cloud ECS instances do not support nested virtualization. Software like VMware Workstation, VirtualBox, or Hyper-V, which can only be used in a physical server environment, is not supported after migration.
If your source server is a cloud server from AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, check the network environment.
If you are migrating across international regions, network stability can be an issue. For more information, see Migrate from various sources to Alibaba Cloud.
If your network can connect to a VPC, we recommend that you select private network transfer for the network mode when you create a migration job. A private network provides faster and more stable data transfer than a public network.
If your source server is an AWS EC2 Linux instance, check its cloud-init configuration.
cloud-init is a service used by many cloud platforms to initialize system configurations. However, the cloud-init configurations of AWS and Alibaba Cloud are not fully compatible. A system migrated from AWS may fail to start or connect to the network due to a cloud-init failure. We recommend using Alibaba Cloud's cloud-init configuration before migration. For more information, see Install cloud-init. Alternatively, you can uninstall the original cloud-init service.
If the source server is a Google Cloud Linux instance, ensure that cloud-init is installed. For more information, see Install cloud-init.
If the source server is a UCloud Linux instance, check if the Linux kernel is a custom version from UCloud.
If the source server's kernel is customized by UCloud, the migrated Linux instance may fail to start or stop in the ECS console. This is because the custom kernel may be incompatible with the Alibaba Cloud platform. You can replace the Linux kernel with a standard one. For example, for a CentOS operating system, you can replace it with the official CentOS kernel. You can also contact technical support. For more information, see Contact us.
Windows systems
Ensure that the system time is synchronized with the standard time for its time zone. This helps prevent SMC client registration failures.
Check and ensure that the Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is running.
Check if QEMU Guest Agent is installed. If it is, you must uninstall it. For more information, see FAQ.
Check application licenses.
After migration to Alibaba Cloud, the underlying hardware of the server changes. This may invalidate application licenses bound to specific hardware, so you must verify that they remain valid.
You must also perform specific checks based on your source server's environment.
If your source server is a physical server, check its virtualization applications. Standard Alibaba Cloud ECS instances do not support nested virtualization. Software like VMware Workstation, VirtualBox, or Hyper-V, which can only be used in a physical server environment, is not supported after migration.
If your source server is a cloud server from AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, check the network environment.
If you are migrating across international regions, network stability can be an issue. For more information, see Migrate from various sources to Alibaba Cloud.
If your source server is a Windows instance on another QEMU KVM-based virtualization platform, check if the
QEMU Guest Agent VSS Providerservice is installed.If this service is installed, find and run the uninstall.bat script in a directory similar to
C:\Program Files (x86)\virtio\monitorto uninstall the QEMU Guest Agent software.