I used ovftool (1.0 running in a RHEL 5.2 VM) to create an ovf of a powered off RHEL 5.1 VM.  All was successful and I can probe the OVF without issue.  However, when I try to import it as a virtual appliance using Virtual Center 2.5 Update 5 I receive:

An error occurred while parsing the OVF descriptor:  Unable to parse xml element 'Envelope'

I've attached the ovf file.

Any ideas?

Hello,

I am trying to use the ovftool in Linux to export a VM running on ESXi 4.0 to an OVF package with the following syntax:

$ovftool "vi://root@192.168.X.XXX?ds=[datastore1]test-vm/test-vm.vmx" /home/ovfs/test1.ovf

But I always get the error: Datacenter object not found

The path to the vmx file is:

test-vm/test-vm.vmx

If I have a standalone ESXi (no vCenter present) what Datacenter name should I use?, I have tried with "Datacenter", "Default" but nothing seems to work.

Any help is highly appreciated.

Thanks.

Juan Aristizabal.

I need to write a script to remotely shotdown a guest VM, export it to .ova format an restart it.

Is there any sample I can start from?

Regards

marius

Hi all,

I have a problem in deploying Suse OVF image, built using Susestudio.

while deploying the OVF, there's a default SuSE Eula which comes up.

using --acceptAllEulas doesn't seem to accept it automatically.

This Eula blocks my automation work.

Did any of you face this issue ??

Any help/workaround would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Hi All.

VMware OVF Tool 2.1.0 is now ready for download.

Go to the download link on the frontpage.

Eske

Hi all,

I am trying to implement an OVF support for some virtualization software, which is using raw images for disks. I use qemu-img to convert raw images to vmdk format. Then I use ovftool to convert ovf file into vmware instance.

When the file I have is a simple ovf descriptor + manifest + disk - all is fine, it works even if I'm using qemu-img without "compat6" option

When the disk is compressed or the OVF package is packed into OVA - there are errors being thrown. Moreover when I create OVA package with no disk, the conversion works.

Here is the fragment of results for the OVA file:

Writing VMX file: test_ova.vmx
[2011-10-03 16:34:35.685 7F097D2C1720 verbose 'ovftool'] Using file size as progress measure
Disk progress: 0%[2011-10-03 16:34:35.685 7F097D2C1720 verbose 'ovftool'] Ovf::GetFileSource as StreamVmdk failed. Exception: Cannot open disk source: Not a supported disk format (sparse VMDK version too old)
Disk Transfer Failed                      
Error: Failed to open source disk: 3f66f54d-a9fa-4aa8-806d-d757d6f34a59.disk0.vmdk
[2011-10-03 16:34:35.685 7F097D2C1720 verbose 'ovftool'] Backtrace:
[00] rip 00007f09767453e4 
[01] rip 00007f09765e99d4 
[02] rip 00007f097658e038 
[03] rip 00000000004fef51 
[04] rip 000000000054aaa5 
[05] rip 000000000054ae78 
[06] rip 000000000049c41a 
[07] rip 00007f0974e62c4d 
[08] rip 000000000047ec7a 

[2011-10-03 16:34:35.685 7F097D2C1720 verbose 'ovftool'] Deleting file: ./test_ova-disk1.vmdk

Same fragment when I unpack OVA and then run ovftool on the .ovf file:

Writing VMX file: test_ovf.vmx
[2011-10-03 16:35:53.934 7F7E899C4720 verbose 'ovftool'] Using file size as progress measure
Disk progress: 0%[2011-10-03 16:35:53.935 7F7E899C4720 verbose 'ovftool'] Ovf::GetFileSource as StreamVmdk failed. Exception: Cannot open disk source: Not a supported disk format (sparse VMDK version too old)
Disk progress: 99%[2011-10-03 16:35:54.106 7F7E899C4720 verbose 'ovftool'] Ovf::GetFileSource: Opened 3f66f54d-a9fa-4aa8-806d-d757d6f34a59.disk0.vmdk as diskLib source
[2011-10-03 16:35:54.106 7F7E899C4720 verbose 'ovftool'] Opening disk target /xcinstall-1.corp.google.com/VirtualLsiLogicController0:0
Disk Transfer Completed                   
Completed successfully

Thank you.

Hi All,

I have just come across ovftool and was giving a try to it. I am fairly new to VMware world.

I have a  .OVF which I exported using vSphere client 4.0. This .OVF comprises of 3 Suse Linux based virtual machines. i.e. I created a vApp on ESX (4.1) host, in this vApp I put my 3 SLES VMs and then exported it as OVF.

It has a total size of around 4.5GB.

Now I ran this command to compress this .OVF as well as gave an option to create deltadisks.

C:\> ovftool --compress=9 --makeDeltaDisks --skipManifestCheck  MyVMCluster\MyVMCluster.ovf   E:\

output:

{{{

The manifest does not validate
Generating delta disks for 2 disks (capacity 40960 MB)
Reading disks
Disk Transfer Completed

Determining optimal configuration for capacity group
Writing configuration to disk
Disk Transfer Completed

Completed successfully

}}}

Now when I checked my E:\ It had created a folder with the same name and put related files there. I saw a significant reduction in the new vmdk size. ( around 2.3GB now )

Now when I manually deploy this new ovf on vSphere client, it goes till certain %age and then flags an error:

{{{

Error uploading file to server ( E:\MyVMCluster\disk3.vmdk.gz ) Not a supported disk format ( Invalid sparse vmdk header )

}}}

and then it stops and everything rolledback.

Any pointers ?

Thanks

Nikunj

Hi,

I want to config IP-address/gateway/netmask to the deployed ovf virtual machine and i getting the following info when i run ovftool.exe

Can anyone help me out in configure ipaddress fields.

Or is there any other way to do it.

Hi,

I have created a Video Tutorial for Beginners to show 'How to use ovftool command line utility'

fosshelp: How to use ovftool command line utility

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuvHfB6BdJk

Thanks,

Installed ovftool 3.5 on CentOS 5.9.  Install went without any errors, says Installation Successful.

Running ovftool yields about 5 errors similar to:

/usr/lib/vmware-ovftool/ovftool.bin: /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.9' not found (required by /usr/lib/vmware-ovftool/libvmomi.so)

CentOS 5.9 doesn't support GLIBC 3.4.

The ovftool documentation says it supports CentOS 5 and 6.

What's the problem here?

Greetings! Question in regards to OVFtool and how storage file systems are handled in VMWare.

I am using the OVFTool version 2.1.0 (Tried 3.5.0 with not much avail) to export multiple VMDK files or disks in a Virtual Machine (versions 7 and 8) to a multiple OVA files for each - at moment tool allows for consolidation of disks in a partitioned state into ONE OVA - Does anyone know of a work around or undocumented switch which can be used to create X # of virtual disks to X # of OVAs for import into another system?

Copying VMDKs is not a viable option in this case as want to remain with OVA standards.

Thank you!

Hello..

Is it possible to give vCenter appliance ip, gateway, netmask etc via ovftool? Same way as to Orchestrator.

--prop:vami.DNS.VMware_vCenter_Server_Appliance=10.0.0.69  --prop:vami.gateway.VMware_vCenter_Server_Appliance=10.0.0.1  --prop:vami.ip0.VMware_vCenter_Server_Appliance=10.0.0.96  --prop:vami.netmask0.VMware_vCenter_Server_Appliance=255.255.255.0

When running these commands with ovftool, it doesnt give any errors  or anything, but it doesnt pass the variables forward either. Clearly  vCenter appliance doesnt have any "intelligence" for such feature.

ovftool --acceptAllEulas --skipManifestCheck  --datastore=storage-1 --diskMode=thin --name=vcenter --prop:vami.DNS.VMware_vCenter_Server_Appliance=10.0.0.69   --prop:vami.gateway.VMware_vCenter_Server_Appliance=10.0.0.1   --prop:vami.ip0.VMware_vCenter_Server_Appliance=10.0.0.96   --prop:vami.netmask0.VMware_vCenter_Server_Appliance=255.255.255.0

/VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-5.0.0.3324-472350/VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-5.0.0.3324-472350_OVF10.ovf.backup  vi://10.0.0.10

So any tips? Do I need to create some external media and modify the appliance to add it in, which will pass the needed variables to appliance, and script which will run from init.d on start and read those?

-k-

I have a setup where I am accessing vCenter and an ESXi host through a NAT layer. If I try to deploy directly to vCenter, ovftool automatically tries to connect to the ip address of the ESXi host behind the NAT layer, which fails.

It looks something like this:

[root@ovfimporter mnt]# date; ovftool --datastore="PayGo Storage" --net:"VLan 4=DedicatedPortGroup_NNNN" CUST/CUST.ovf vi://matthew.wallace@10.10.10.1/Customer\ Datacenter/host/PayGo\ Cluster/Resources/Paygo/NNNN\ \(abc44060-35dc-438a-8c79-6bc7586082ab\)/ ;date

Tue Oct  8 10:18:43 MDT 2013

Opening OVF source: CUST/CUST.ovf

The manifest validates

Enter login information for target vi://10.10.10.1/

Username: matthew.wallace

Password: *********

Opening VI target: vi://matthew.wallace@10.10.10.1:443/Customer%20Datacenter/host/PayGo%20Cluster/Resources/Paygo/NNNN%20(abc44060-35dc-438a-8c79-6bc7586082ab)/

Deploying to VI: vi://matthew.wallace@10.10.10.1:443/Customer%20Datacenter/host/PayGo%20Cluster/Resources/Paygo/NNNN%20(abc44060-35dc-438a-8c79-6bc7586082ab)/

Transfer Failed

Transfer Failed

Error: Lost connection to target

Completed with errors

Tue Oct  8 10:20:19 MDT 2013

Looking at netstat, I saw a hung connection to 443 of one of the ESX hosts in that PayGo Cluster:

In this case, 172.17.0.10 is the "real" IP of one of the esx hosts in the PayGo cluster managed by that vCenter, which I can reach from the client running the ovftool only by using the NAT ip of 10.10.10.100.

So, I tried to specify the external ip of that host. Per the ovftool 3.5 user guide:

Given that, I tried using several syntaxes:

ovftool --datastore="PayGo Storage" --net:"VLan 4=DedicatedPortGroup_NNNN" CUST/CUST.ovf vi://matthew.wallace@10.10.10.1/Customer\ Datacenter/host/PayGo\ Cluster/Resources/Paygo/NNNN\ \(abc44060-35dc-438a-8c79-6bc7586082ab\)/?ip=10.10.10.100

or even just the simplest version to see if I can get a prompt for going further down in the locator tree:

ovftool --datastore="PayGo Storage" --net:"VLan 4=DedicatedPortGroup_NNNN" "vi://matthew.wallace@10.10.10.1/?ip=10.10.10.100"

I invariably get a result like this:

The manifest validates

Enter login information for target vi://10.10.10.1/

Username: matthew.wallace

Password: *********

Error: Locator does not refer to an object: vi://matthew.wallace@10.10.10.1:443/?ip=10.10.10.100

Completed with errors

Outside of the brief mention of the "ip=xxx" param mentioned in the ovftool userguide I've been unable to find any reference to someone successfully using this parameter so I'm uncertain if this is a bug, my not understanding the intention of the parameter as specified in the OVF tool guide, or me using bad syntax.

From virtualmachine i have exported .ovf file from the following website http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/how-do-i-convert-virtualbox-files-to-work-with-vmware-workstation/#.

and i recieved the following error in cmd prompt.

can anyone please help me to understand error line 84 and prove me solution .

........................................................................................

Error:

- Line 84: Could not parse the document: 'mismatched tag'

Warning:

- No manifest file found.

Completed with errors.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steps followed:

Step 1: Export your virtual machine

The first step is to export your virtual machine from VirtualBox.

Step 2: Editing your .ovf file

The file you need to edit will be the .ovf file that serves as the descriptor for your virtual machine. You MUST open this in a text editor. Do NOT open it in a word processor as this will add extra characters to the file, which will render it unreadable by either VirtualBox or VMWare. The first section you need to edit is the format section. Look for a line of code (near the top) that contains this phrase:

ovf:format=

What follows that section needs to be changed to:

"http://www.vmware.com/interfaces/specifications/vmdk.html#streamOptimized"

The next edit (in the same file) is the Virtual SystemType, and it must be one of the following:

<vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-07</vssd:VirtualSystemType> (for a esx 4.0)

<vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-04</vssd:VirtualSystemType> (for esx 3.5.x and 4.0 hosts)

Believe it or not, the next item to edit is the rsad for the sound card. The section will look similar to:

<Item>

<rasd:Caption>sound</rasd:Caption>

<rasd:Description>Sound Card</rasd:Description>

<rasd:InstanceId>6</rasd:InstanceId>

<rasd:ResourceType>35</rasd:ResourceType>

<rasd:ResourceSubType>ensoniq1371</rasd:ResourceSubType>

<rasd:AutomaticAllocation>false</rasd:AutomaticAllocation>

<rasd:AddressOnParent>3</rasd:AddressOnParent>

</Item>

To the above section, add the following after the first <Item> tag:

<Item ovf:required="false">

Step 3: Using the OVF tool

This step requires you to download and install the VMWare OVF Tool (you will have to log in first). The OVF tool is command-line only, and it will convert your newly prepped .ovf file into a .vmx that VMWare can use. To do this, follow these steps:

• Click Start | Run.
• Type cmd.
• In the command window, change to the directory you installed the OVF Tool into and then issue the command:ovftool appliance.ovf new_appliance.vmx(Where appliance.ovf is the name of the appliance you exported from VirtualBox and new_appliance.vmx is the name you want to give the new virtual appliance. Depending on the size of your virtual appliance, this could take a while.)

Hi,

I have a ESXi 5.0 server running which has a Guest VM running CentOS 5.6.

The ESXi server is a standalone server, not included in a datacenter, not managed by vCenter.

The server has a HDD of 80G which has both the ESXi host & the Guest OS running on top of it.

I installed ovftools on my Windows laptop & tried to create a ovf from the VM but am unsuccessful. I constantly get the following error -

c:\>ovftool vi://root:<rootpassword>@<ESXi Host IP>/datastore1/CentOS c:\testVM.ovf

Error: Cannot parse locater: vi://root:<rootpassword>@<ESXi Host IP>/datastore1/CentOS

Completed with errors

The local datastore name is "datastore1"

Can someone help me out here with forming the correct the ovftool command to create an ovf & possibly an OVA out of the running VM?

Thanks

Bhushan Pathak

Hi VMWare experts,

I am having problem with automation script because the string passed in the ovftool command uses credential vsphere.local\userXYZ instead of just userXYZ

It appears that the backsplash in the 'vsphere.local\user' cause the command line to be misinterpreted, so the automation script that calls ovftool to deploy VMs kept failing.  It erred with "cURL error of ‘couldn’t resolve hostname" even though there is nothing wrong with any hosts or hostname resolution on the network.

On a Win-based vCenter I was able to reconfigure it so that instead of requiring login user format of 'vsphere.local\userXYZ', it will now accept user = 'userXYZ'. 

With that change, ovftool.exe command string is now progress correctly and VMs are deployed. 

I could reconfigure Window-based vCenter to not use just user = userXYZ (instead of vsphere.local\account), but I could not figure out how to get vCSA to stop requiring the format of vsphere.local\userXYZ.

The string segment in the long ovftool.exe command line looked like this …

This works:

"vi://userXYZ:password@tm-vcenter55/DC2-SJ/host/Topology/csg-sj-esxi112.cisco.com"

This does not work:

"vi://vsphere.local\userXYZ:password@lin-vcenter55/DC2-SJ/host/Topology/csg-sj-esxi111.cisco.com"

Is there anyway to configure vCenter Virtual Appliance to use log in format of user = userXYZ instead of user = vsphere.local\userXYZ?   Or is there some way of reformatting the string so that OS can interpret it correctly even with backsplash '\' is used in the string?

Thank you

Charles

The complete ovftool.exe command is shown below:

"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool\ovftool.exe" --acceptAllEulas --skipManifestCheck --diskMode=thin --name=linsys2-vm1 --deploymentOption=vm_typeA --datastore=EMC-LUN1 --net:"Network Adapter 1"="VLAN 410 - 172.27.14.0/24" --net:"Network Adapter 2"="VLAN 410 - 172.27.14.0/24" --vmFolder=   --prop:cisco_hostname.Proj=linsys2-vm1 --prop:cisco_ip_0.Proj=172.27.14.135 --prop:cisco_dnsDomain.Proj=cisco.com --prop:cisco_netmask_0.Proj=255.255.255.0 --prop:cisco_gateway_0.Proj=172.27.14.1 --prop:cisco_dns1_0.Proj=172.27.200.199 --prop:cisco_dns2_0.Proj=173.36.131.10 --prop:cisco_language.Proj=English v:\ova\projectX_1.0.0.ova "vi://vsphere.local\userXYZ:password@lin-vcenter55/DC2-SJ/host/Topology/csg-sj-esxi111.cisco.com"

Opening OVA source: v:\ova\projectX_1.0.0.ova

The manifest does not validate

Error: cURL error: Couldn't resolve host name

Completed with errors

Installation Done!

What is the difference between OVF 1.0 and 0.9 version? I would be interested in knowing about the major enchancements made in the newer versions and thereby the advantages of the same.

Thanks in advance

This question may be more suited for one of the vSphere forums, but I thought I'd try here as well.  When I try to import an OVA using the vSphere client, I get an error.  The error says:

The following manifest file entry (line 3) is invalid. 

My manifest file (.mf) is only 2 lines long.  Also, if I unpack the OVA using a tool like winrar and then try to import OVF, everything works flawlessly.

Also, the import of the OVA works fine under ovftool as well.  That leads me to believe that there isn't anything actually wrong with the manifest file. 

Any ideas or thoughts?  Thanks.

I am trying to import OVF with custom propery set and getting folling error with vmware ovf tool. Any idea on how to resolve this issue?

Error:

- Line 107: Unsupported element 'Property'

Hi,

trying to convert a "SUSEstudio" generated vmdk/vmx to our VI.

I have:

SLE_11.1JeOSPHR.x86_64-0.0.3.vmdk

SLE_11.1JeOSPHR.x86_64-0.0.3.vmx

christian@chrisw:/srv/ISO/JeOS/SLE_11.1JeOSPHR-0.0.3&gt; ovftool SLE_11.1JeOSPHR.x86_64-0.0.3.vmx

Opening VMX source: SLE_11.1JeOSPHR.x86_64-0.0.3.vmx

OVF version:   1.0

Name:          SLE_11.1JeOSPHR.x86_64-0.0.3

Download Size:     Unknown

Deployment Sizes:

  Flat disks:      4.04 GB

  Sparse disks:   Unknown

Networks:

  Name:        bridged

  Description: The bridged network

Virtual Hardware:

  Family:       vmx-04

  Disk Types:   SCSI-lsilogic

Completed successfully

#####

When I try to convert it to vi (to correct datastore) I'm getting the mentioned error:

so what is the correct syntax ??

christian@chrisw:~/srv/ISO/JeOS/SLE_11.1JeOSPHR-0.0.3&gt; ovftool -ds=CX300-OTC-02 -dm=thick SLE_11.1JeOSPHR.x86_64-0.0.3.vmx vi://i000156@vc.icw.int/DC%20OTC

Opening VMX source: SLE_11.1JeOSPHR.x86_64-0.0.3.vmx

Please enter login information for target vi://vc.icw.int/

Username: i000156

Password: ********

Error: Locator does not refer to an object: vi://i000156@vc.icw.int/DC%20OTC

DataCenter="DC OTC"

DataSource="CX300-OTC-2"

THX

Chris