Good morning,
I have 3 questions regarding hardware version and VM Tools, can somebody help? Thank you in advance.
1. Is the OVF/OVA file virtual machine hardware version related? Do the OVF/OVA files exported from vSphere contain the virtual hardware version information ?
2. Consider i have a VM in vSphere 6.0 platform with hardware version 11 and the latest VM Tools(came with ESXi 6.0 U2), can i export it to a OVA file, then import it to vSphere 5.1 platform ? If can, what hardware version of the target VM will be ?
3. Can high version vmtools running with lower vSphere platform? For example, i have a VM with hardware version 11 and the latest VM Tools (ESXi 6 U2), later i move the VM to ESXi 5.1, should i downgrade the vmware tools ? Is there any compatibility issue ?
Hello
1. Yes if you unzip the ova and open the ovf in an editor you see:
<System>
<vssd:ElementName>Virtual Hardware Family</vssd:ElementName>
<vssd:InstanceID>0</vssd:InstanceID>
<vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier><name of your OVA></vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier>
<vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-08</vssd:VirtualSystemType>
</System>
2. You can't. The vmware hardware 11 is not supported by 5.1.
3. haven't tried it cause you can't import the vmware 11 to 5.1. Maybe works higher vmtools as long as you keep the hardware version to the supported for 5.1.
Best Regards
Your questions can be answered by looking at the Interoperability Matrix.
Hello
1. Yes if you unzip the ova and open the ovf in an editor you see:
<System>
<vssd:ElementName>Virtual Hardware Family</vssd:ElementName>
<vssd:InstanceID>0</vssd:InstanceID>
<vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier><name of your OVA></vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier>
<vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-08</vssd:VirtualSystemType>
</System>
2. You can't. The vmware hardware 11 is not supported by 5.1.
3. haven't tried it cause you can't import the vmware 11 to 5.1. Maybe works higher vmtools as long as you keep the hardware version to the supported for 5.1.
Best Regards
Thank you.
I'm curious, if a OVF with hign hardware version can not be imported to low ESXi version, how can it be imported to a different virtualization platform, for example, from vSphere to VirtualBox, Just ignore the following line ?
<vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-08</vssd:VirtualSystemType>
Then why ESXi does not give us a chance to ignore this and reset the hardware version to it's supported level?
Thank you for your help.
