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EricTrentMiller
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

resize ovf before deploying

I have two vm ovfs. Each vm ovf has two thick provisioned vmdks that are sized way too big. None of them are even close to half capacity.

I'd like to deploy the two ovfs on an ESX host whose datastore is not large enough for both vms two vmdks in thier current size.

what is the smartest way to resize the vmdks down so they will fit on the datastore? can I do it during the deploy ovf, or do I need to do it in advance and then deploy, and how do I do it?

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lamw
Community Manager
Community Manager

You can not resize the VM as you deploy, only after.

You might be able to use VMware Studio, which may have been the tool that created the OVF and perhaps resize it, though I'm not familiar with the capabilities of that application. You might also be able to deploy it say on VMware Workstation, then resize the VM and re-export that out as an OVF to deploy to your ESX(i) host.

As an OVF, it's design to deploy per the defined configurations and you can't modify the settings during the deployment.

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EricTrentMiller
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Enthusiast

"You can not resize the VM as you deploy, only after. "

so can I deploy one, resize it, deploy the other, resize it?

hwo do you resize the vm after you deploy it?

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scowse
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

You can use a tool like gparted or any partition manager (that works)

EricTrentMiller
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

"You can use a tool like gparted or any partition manager (that works)"

you mean deploy one vm and then use gparted or a partition manager to resize it, right?

Or do you mean mount the vmdk in from the ovf in my local workstation and resize it, save it, and then deploy?

Isn't there a way to do this in the vSphere client after I deploy the vm? Can't I like switch to thin provision or something during/after deployment?

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scowse
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yes - i mean deploy, then resize by booting with a parted magic or some such beast

This is not to be confused with thin/thick provisioning - a totally different kettle of fish.

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lamw
Community Manager
Community Manager

One additional comment, to the resize problem as I don't deploy many OVFs or create OVFs myself to know all the available capabilities.

I don't recall which OVF that I had deployed recently, but it did allow you to either fully allocate the VMDK (zeroerthick) or deploy as thin. This may be a feature within the OVF depending on how it was created.

As mentioned, the best method is if yo have the space on you ESX(i) host. Deploy the OVF, then resize using various tools depending on the guestOS at hand, gparted is a great tool. Once you've resized and the VM works, you can then just perform a clone if you have vCenter. If you do not, you can manually clone the VM, a little bit more tedious but you can find the directions online. The other option, you can export the image back out to your desktop and then re-import it in, again a little tedious but now you will have a saved OVF of the re-sized image.

=========================================================================

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009,2010

VMware scripts and resources at:

Twitter: @lamw

Getting Started with the vMA (tips/tricks)

Getting Started with the vSphere SDK for Perl

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

VMware Developer Community

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

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