Run a qcow2 image in VMware

Intro

For some reason I needed to run a qcow2 image on my laptop. Standing up an OpenStack platform was out of the question; the hardware could not take it. I wanted to see if I could just run the qcow2 image in VMware. Everything online said to convert it with qemu-img, and then the write-ups just stopped. So I poked at it myself and wrote the process down.

Preparation

First download qemu-img. I was on 64-bit Windows, so I grabbed the win64 build (opens in a new tab). After it is installed, add the install directory to PATH so the rest is easier.

I will skip VMware itself and the original qcow2 image. You need both.

Steps

First convert the qcow2 image to vmdk with qemu-img:

$ qemu-img convert -f qcow2 CentOS_7.2_x86_64_XD.qcow2 -O vmdk Centos.vmdk

You will get a Centos.vmdk image in the current directory, but you cannot import it: there is no vmx file. Dropping it into VMware throws an error.

So create an empty VM in VMware first. Pick the guest OS from your qcow2; mine was CentOS 7, so I chose CentOS 7 64-bit.

Once that is created, go into that VM’s folder under Virtual Machines, delete the vmdk, and replace it with the file you converted with qemu-img. Start VMware and it should work.

Here is a demo: