VMware Communities : Unanswered Threads - Open Virtualization Format Tool

how to change ovf exported from vsphere to be compatible with workstation?

zoomprofile — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:26:23 GMT

Hi,

we want make our virtual appliance as vmware ready. We want have OVF file with VMDK compatible with vmware workstation, player, server and esx3.5. But we have only Vmware vSphere. vSphere exports OVF to format 1.0. But I cant import this format to older versions as Workstation 6.5 (but to 7.0 i can't too), to esx 3.5, etc....

What can I do for it to import it? I have template of ovf 0.9. I try to rewrite it. Import was sucessful, but when I start this machine which includes Linux with vmware toolsm kernel says KERNEL PANIC. Is there other format of exported VMDK file on esx 4 than esx 3?

Is is neccessary to make it compatible with Workstation to have vmware ready for VA status??

Please help...

OVF 0.9 with Debian

balous — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:05:08 GMT

Hi,

is it possible to create OVF 0.9 containing Debian? What is the correct ovf:id code?

I am trying to create OVF that imports into vSphere 4 as Debian (which does support Debian) and is still possible to import through VC 2.5 GUI.

Thanks,

Petr.

Deploy OVF template with monolithicFlat VMDKs

NarayanVenkat — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:51:48 GMT

I am currently trying to deploy a OVF template that points to a VMDK of createType=monolithicFlat. At the time of deployment I get an error ..

Failed to deploy OVF package: The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error

There are other posts in this forum that point to incorrect sizes in the OVF file as one of the potential issues. But none of these seem to correspond to VMDKs of monolithicFlat type. I have listed below the References and DiskSection of my OVF file and VMDK file descriptor. I will appreciate it if someone can point out potential errors.

<References>
<File ovf:href="disk.vmdk" ovf:id="Disk" ovf:size="1073741824"/>
</References>

<DiskSection>
<Info>Virtual disk information</Info>
<Disk ovf:diskId="Disk" ovf:fileRef="Disk"
ovf:capacity="1073741824" ovf:capacityAllocationUnits="byte"
ovf:format="http://www.vmware.com/interfaces/specifications/vmdk.html#streamOptimized" />
</DiskSection>

# cat disk.vmdk

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
encoding="UTF-8"
CID=67632d29
parentCID=ffffffff
createType="monolithicFlat"

# Extent description
RW 2097152 FLAT "disk-flat.vmdk" 0

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "7"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "2080"
ddb.geometry.heads = "16"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.adapterType = "ide"

Thanks

OVF imports but gives disk error on power-on

aandriolli — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:27:17 GMT

Fellows,

We just imported an .ova file using the vSphere Client GUI
successfully. But when we try to power on the VM, the VM console only shows
"A disk error" and nothing else. This is a time-sensitive production
pilot and does not look good!

Anyone experienced this before? Couldn't find anything on
the topic.

The .ova was created using the same version of vCenter at
another site.

thanks

When will OVF support disk reference paths and not embed disk data into mgiration file?

Schorschi — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:37:12 GMT

When moving VMs from RHEV, KVM, Hyper-V, and VMware, which many are doing today, OVF makes sense as a starting point, however, OVF is very ineffecient if the given VMs already have virtual disks in the correct location. For example, moving VMs from VMware to KVM, and from KVM to VMware, since KVM supports VMDK as does VMware, and both could and can access the same datastore/NFS mount point, the encode/decode of the virtual machine disks in OVF is not needed, just use a reference path to the VM disks, not the actual data. So the question is, When will OVF support disk reference paths and not embed disk data into mgiration file? Interesting feature no?

URGENT ---- Connection time out with Virtual Center

pietroC — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:15:12 GMT

Hi, I'm trying to connect to virtual center (v 2.5) to obtain real time performance for my virtual machines, but i've this error:

_svcRef===>>> ServiceInstance

Caught Exception : Exception : org.apache.axis.AxisFault Message : ; nested exception is:

java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out: connect StackTrace :

AxisFault

i've used the same code to obtain the same performance from an other VC (v 2.5) and all work good.

could someone give me some information about this error.

attached two different cases.

tks

cannot run ovftool in Win2k3 SBS

trlblzr — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:25:18 GMT

Hi,

I'm trying to convert from VirtualBox to VMWare Fusion. I've exported my VirtualBox VM as a v0.9 OVF and I'm trying to run the ovftool from my VirtualBox VM running Win 2k3 SBS, however the ovftool will not run. I get an error on the command line "The system cannot execute the specified program." Permissions look fine and I'm logged in as local admin. I've added the parent folder to my path. What am I missing? The documentation doesn't cover any sort of troubleshooting...

Thanks!

Jason

OVF Tool memory range error

frwilliam — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:05:06 GMT

I'm using the ovf tool to convert a virtual appliance to virtual machine format and getting a memory size limitation error based on the OVF source. The source ovf file specifies 4GB of memory for guest OS:

Error:
- Virtual machine has 4,096 megabytes of memory, which is outside the range of 4 to 3,600 megabytes supported on the host. This may be a general limitation of the host software, or specific to the guest OS selected for the virtual machine.

The work around is to edit the source ovf file and decrease the RAM size to 3 GB and conversion works fine. But I'm curious why this limitation is occuring. Is 3,600 MB the maximum virtual memory size supported byVMware workstation or server?

New blog entry about deploying a OVF (OVA) using ovftool

Eske — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:34:32 GMT

Rene posted a nice blog entry about using ovftool to deploy an OVA.

http://blogs.vmware.com/vapp/2009/07/commandline-ovf-deployments-.html

eske

Invalid value '1.0' for attribute 'version' on element 'Envelope'

sprotsman — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:13:27 GMT

I have an OVF from VirtualBox that I want to import into VMware Workstation 6.5.2 (linux). The first thing I noticed was that there is no 'Import' option in the File menu of VMware 6.5.2 for linux. So, I ran the ovf file through ovftool. ovftool reported an error when converting:

~/tmp] ovftool foo.ovf ~/tmp/convert/foo.vmx
Opening OVF source: foo.ovf
Warning: No manifest file
Opening VMX target: foo.vmx
Error:
- Line 2: Invalid value '1.0' for attribute 'version' on element 'Envelope'.
~/tmp]

This particular OVF was created with VirtualBox 2.2.4. Both support ovf 1.0, right? Output of line 2 ...

~/tmp] sed -n 2p foo.ovf
<Envelope ovf:version="1.0" xml:lang="en-US" xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/schema/ovf/1/envelope" xmlns:ovf="http://www.vmware.com/schema/ovf/1/envelope" xmlns:rasd="http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wscim/1/cim-schema/2/CIM_ResourceAllocationSettingData" xmlns:vssd="http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wscim/1/cim-schema/2/CIM_VirtualSystemSettingData" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

Ideas?

OVF format expectations

itguybri — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:57:28 GMT

Is there a document anywhere that outlines the format that the OVFTool expects the OVF file to be in?

Such as: elements that ovfTool expects?

I have some OVF sources that are .9 and 1.0 compliant however, ovfTool does not 'like' them because the OVF is not written the exact same way as an ovfTool produced OVF of the same VM. The VMware vmx setting, the resources subtypes are not there for example. As these are VMware specific and optional.

Any guidance is greatly helpful.

Thanks!

Welcome OVF Tool users !

heyitspablo — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:13:30 GMT

We are excited about this new community and welcome all to participate and discuss OVF Tool topics.