VMWare vCenter Converter Standalone – key can’t be retrieved. (return code 2) [SOLVED]

When trying to convert a running Linux machine with the stand alone converter I came across this error:


FAILED: A general system error occurred:
Network error. Host 10.0.0.1 key can't be retrieved. (return code 2)

I checked around the internet and came across this post.

The guy worked out that he had a bunch of stuff in his hosts.allow and hosts.deny and added the other  correct subnets and it worked.

I checked my files and there was nothing in them. So I added the following to hosts.allow:


sudo echo "ALL:ALL" >> /etc/hosts.allow
service network restart

Restarted the network for good measure and I’ve now got it working, so far.

Update: As noted by ArKam in the comments below. This could also happen when the hosts FQDN can’t be resolved. The best idea is to clone the host using the IP address instead of a host name. Thanks for the tip!

3 thoughts on “VMWare vCenter Converter Standalone – key can’t be retrieved. (return code 2) [SOLVED]”

  1. ArKam

    Hi, don’t forget that sometimes, this issue happens when your host FQDN can’t be resolve too, if it’s happen and that adding an allowed host don’t fix the issue, just try to clone the machine using IP Address instead of host-name during the Converter wizard.

    1. digitalchild

      Thanks ArKam I didn’t know this. I’ll update the post to include this information.

  2. Pingback: How to virtualize linux machine on windows? – Mags Forum Technology

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