Hi,
I'm trying to create a new blueprint to deploy VMs from an OVA. It's a common task where I work, as some of our providers send us pre-configured OVAs for us.
I've tried the most simple blueprint, a new VM from the "ImportOvfWorkflow" connected to an existing network. The OVF automatically loads the required Custom Properties:
VMware.Ovf.Configuration.vm.fqdn
VMware.Ovf.Configuration.vm.ipaddr
VMware.Ovf.Configuration.vm.defaultNetmask
and so on...
I have two issues with this. Firstly, the most simple solution would be to ask the values on the request. I've tried this, but it fails. It successfully configures FQDN and IP Address but it fails to set the values for Gateway, Subnet Mask, DNS Servers and Search Domains. The VM fails to power-on because these are mandatory values and afterwards the VM gets deleted.
The other issue that I have is that manually configuring the IP address on request is not as ideal as I would want it to be. Is there a way to tell the Custom Properties to get the Network configuration from what VRA is going to set to the Network0?
Any help is appreciated. 
Accepted Solutions
Hi Agbiront, team!
Did you manage to solve your issue?
From what you wrote, it looks to me like the issue is with the values you gave the custom properties - since at least some of them (fqdn, ip) got through.
In my case, it doesn't look like the ovf custom properties get passed-on at all.
If someone could tell me which logs to check to figure this out, would really appreciate it.
To address the issue of the IP@, my approach was to design a little VCO action to fetch all available IPs from a given network reservation, and hook it to a drop-down.
I've used this approach on blueprint based on template cloning, using property definitions (associate VirtualMachine.Network0.Address to a dropdown with external values / script).
During the allocation process, if the IP is within the network reservation ranges, it get's automatically allocated.
With the OVF deployment, it's not working 
Dropdown get's populated fine but once I submit the request, the first available IP from the network profile gets allocated, not the one I selected in the drop-down.
VRA "knows" it must allocate an IP for the given reservation because I've added an external network to my blueprint, but it doesn't consider the OVF custom property in which I stored the IP from the dropdown, unlike what happens with Virtualmachine.Network0.Address. What would be the proper approach to resolve this issue?
My blueprint, fairly simple:
erog_lab is my external network, a plain distributed portgroup
and these are the custom properties I've gotten after validating the OVF:
I've hardcoded most of them, made them overridable and visible only because I'm debugging the thing, later I'll have most of them hidden.
I've defined VMware.Ovf.Configuration.ip0 in the dictionary and hooked up the VCO action script getAvailableIPfromNetworkProfile
Proceeding with a deployment, I select an IP from the range (not the first one available).
This is the data from the request:
But as you can see, it's allocated the first available:
Nothing pops up in the log, or in the audit log ...
And when checking in vCenter the vApp options that should have been filled with the data from VRA, it's empty:
The VM came up with DHCP by the way. Not a total loss, but almost :smileylaugh:.
Passing OVF params should be a walk in the park, I must be making a simple mistake along the way.
I sure hope you guys can help me out here.
Cheers,