Forklift Console Plugin is an OpenShift Console dynamic plugin that provides a web-based user interface for migrating virtual machines to OpenShift Virtualization.
The plugin solves the problem of managing virtual machine migrations from multiple source platforms—VMware vSphere, oVirt/RHV, OpenStack, Hyper-V, OVA files, and AWS EC2—into OpenShift Virtualization environments. It integrates directly into the OpenShift web console by running as a dynamic plugin that communicates with the Kubernetes API and the Forklift Inventory Service. The Forklift Operator handles automatic deployment and management of the plugin, adding a Migration for Virtualization section to the console upon installation.
Adoption suits teams running OpenShift clusters who need to migrate existing virtual machine workloads to Kubernetes-native virtualization. The tool requires the Forklift Operator to be installed on an OpenShift cluster running version 4.19 or later. For local development, it supports setting up a KinD cluster with various provider configurations through CI scripts, allowing developers to test against mock providers without access to production infrastructure. The plugin is built with React 17, TypeScript, and PatternFly 6, and supports loading additional OpenShift console plugins alongside it for extended functionality such as monitoring metrics or networking features.
Development activity shows structured contribution practices with required commit sign-offs and a specified commit message format documented in a dedicated guide. The project maintains clear coding standards and testing guidelines outlined in its contributing documentation. Development setup includes npm-based tooling for local console startup and dependency management, with automated scripts for cloning and updating sibling plugin directories during development.
