Converting SANS Course vmdk Images to qcow2 in Proxmox

SANS courses distribute their machine images via vmdk, VMware’s disk image format. SANS courses spend a lot of time stressing their minimum system requirements, which makes sense given that the trainings were traditionally taken in a classroom over the course of a week. There wouldn’t be any time to fiddle with system issues. Now that courses can be taken on-demand, I knew I wasn’t going to run the SANS VMs on my laptop but instead on my homelab hypervisor.

There isn’t anything bespoke in the vmdk to qcow2 conversion instructions below. I’m only referencing them adjacent to SANS courses for SEO and the next psycho who refuses to install VMware on their laptop.

# get the vmdk from coursework iso onto Proxmox
# in this case, I moved it to /var/lib/vz/images
root@proxmox:/var/lib/vz/images# file for572-sift-workstation.vmdk
for572-sift-workstation.vmdk: VMware4 disk image

# convert the image to QCOW2
root@proxmox:/var/lib/vz/images# qemu-img convert -f vmdk for572-sift-workstation.vmdk \
-O qcow2 for572-sift-workstation.qcow2

root@proxmox:/var/lib/vz/images# file *
for572-sift-workstation.qcow2:       QEMU QCOW Image (v3)
for572-sift-workstation.vmdk:        VMware4 disk image

# create a Proxmox VM WITHOUT an image, remember the VM ID

# import a QCOW2 image into the specified VM ID from the given proxmox storage
qm importdisk $VM_ID for572-sift-workstation.qcow2 local-lvm

Finally adjust the newly created VM’s boot order settings to include the newly added disk image in the boot settings. If you do not enable the disk image in the boot order settings, you will not be able to boot into the image.