How to copy an ESXi VM from a different host without vCenter

With vCenter, cloning and moving a VM from a host to a different host is really easy. It just takes a few clicks and then everything is done. Copying a VM from a host to different host without vCenter, however, is a bit more challenging. Belows are steps to copy a VM to different host without vCenter.

1. Locate where your source VM is on the host:
- Login VMware vSphere Client on your host --> right click to the VM you want to locate --> Edit Setting --> Select Options tab

- Note down the path of Virtual Machine Configuration File. In this case, it is [datastore0] Mac-Appium04/Mac-Appium.vmx.
- SSH to the host, the VM location is /vmfs/volumes/datastore0/Mac-Appium04  (datastore0/Mac-Appium04 is what we refer from the path of Virtual Machine Configuration File and /vmfs/volumes/ is where ESXi puts VMs by default)

2. Copy the VM folder to the different host with scp command:

scp -r robin@10.10.2.20:/vmfs/volumes/datastore0/Mac-Appium04 /vmfs/volumes/datastore/

Note: robin is the username to ssh to the host. /vmfs/volumes/datastore/ is where I want to put VM on the destination host.

3. Add the VM on VMware vSphere Client
- Login the destination host using vSphere Client
- Open datastore browser

- Find the VM, right click on the .vmx file and select 'Add to Inventory'

- Once you finish above steps, the VM is shown in vSphere client