Loading OVA/OVF onto 6.7 free hypervisor

[Gibbon67]

Hi,

I know there are several notes on the main site about the limitations of loading OVA or OVF files into version 6.7 via the HTML5 UI client. However I was just wondering if it is possible to load them via a URL after uploading them to the datastore.

I'm using a simple lab setup to test some SIP PBX pre-built systems that are delivered as OVA files (around 5-6GB each) but I can't upload these via the web UI either as an OVA or after extracting the files. I've tried Firefox, Chrome, Edge and they all fail to upload in the same way. I know in other vSphere clients the option to specify a URL to the OVA file exists but the HTML5 UI doesn't seem to allow this.

I could build new VMs from ISO files but that will add several hours of my time each time a new build comes out and they are arriving around every 10 days at the moment so that is a real pain.

Thanks

Paul

[compwizpro]

What error do you get when you attempt to upload?  You should be able to deploy OVFs with the free version.  Can you upload / deploy other OVFs to the host without the error?

Also, you might be able to use OVFTOOL to deploy the OVF but I don't remember if that requires a vCenter endpoint or if you can use an ESXi host instead.

[Gibbon67 · Accepted solution]

Hi, I was getting the "undefined error"  message and given the options of cancel or reload. I've tried a couple of other smaller .OVFs and they work. However, i've now installed the ovftool and that has uploaded the problematic files without issue, so I think it must be a size issue with the HTML5 UI.

Thanks for your advice