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'

I have a compressed OVF file generated by OVF tool using "compress" option. However, I cannot convert the generated ovf file back to vmx. When I run OVF tool to perform conversion, it says "Disk Transfer Failed" and "Error: Failed to open source disk: disk1.vmdk.gz" .Any ideas how I should proceed with this?

Hi,

I'm trying to convert VM into ovf. But ovftool fails with the message:

./ovftool --powerOffSource vi://administrator:xxxxx@host/?ip=192.168.1.22 myovf.ovf
Opening VI source: vi://administrator@host/
Powering off VM: 0593498732-VM_Name
Error: File sanfs://vmfs_uuid:3c3693e8-f77a642a-1910-5c6bdcb26d3a/packages/4.1.0/vmtools/linux.iso was not found

Could you please help me with the issue above?

Thanks,

Ovftool need to download 2.0.1 but vmware's website when I go to the download page tells me that is not, someone can provide me the tool, thanks

Hi- has anyone hit any problems with exporting large (e.g. > 1TB) VMs in OVA/OVF format?

I realise that you can split the files generated, but leaving aside any issues to do with the file-system on which the files reside, are there any inherent gotchas with the export mechanism or the file format that would mean it's not a good idea to rely on this for exporting large VMs...?

Thanks!

I give; I have spent too long attempting to find the magic decoder ring to get ovftool to do what I expect to be a very basic use case.

My vCenter server is win2k8 R2 node, my host node is RHEL6.3, and my guest in this case is CentOS6.3.

The vCenter server FQDN is vsphere2.foo.com.

The ESX host is las13.foo.com.

The guest is qavm1.foo.com

The Datacenter name is screwy, but appears to be passable with URI character replacements.  The name is "Foo / Bar Network" so I have been using "Foo %2f Bar Network" and quoting any URL string to deal with the spaces.

Examining the Datacenter layout in vCenter client, the path to the vm from which I want to create an OVA is

Foo / Bar Network/QA Guy/las13.foo.com/qavm1

attempting to use ovftool from either the Win2k8 server or my RHEL6.4 development machine results in the same errors.  I have perturbed the syntax of options and paths in so many ways I don't want to list them all here, but the end result is always an incorrect reference or missing object.

Might I grovel for the proper syntax to store a VM guest as an OVA?

Yes...I have devoured the manual mutiple times over...RTFM is my first tenet

Thank you all!

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourcetype=vmx "vi://administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com"

Error: Unknown option: 'sourcetype'

Completed with errors

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourceType=vmx "vi://administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com"

Error: Failed to open file: vi://administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourceType=vmx "vi://administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com/qavm1"

Error: Failed to open file: vi://administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com/qavm1

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourceType=VI "vi://administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com/qavm1"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: administrator

Password: **********

Error: Locator does not refer to an object: vi://administrator@vsphere2.foo.com:443/Foo / Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com/qavm1

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourceType=VI "vi://administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: administrator

Password: *********

Error: Locator does not refer to an object: vi://administrator@vsphere2.foo.com:443/Foo / Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourceType=VI "vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/host/"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: Administrator

Password: **********

Error: Locator does not refer to an object: vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com:443/Foo / Bar Network/host/

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourceType=VI "vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/host"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: Administrator

Password: **********

Error: Locator does not refer to an object: vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com:443/Foo / Bar Network/host

[root@qavm34 tmp]#

[root@qavm34 tmp]#

[root@qavm34 tmp]#

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourceType=VI "vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: Administrator

Password: **********

Error: Found wrong kind of object (Datacenter). Possible completions are:

  vm/

  host/

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourceType=VI "vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/vm/qavm1"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: Administrator

Password: **********

Error: Locator does not refer to an object: vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com:443/Foo / Bar Network/vm/qavm1

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourceType=VI "vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/vm/QA Guy/qavm1"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: Administrator

Password: **********

Error: Locator does not refer to an object: vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com:443/Foo / Bar Network/vm/QA Guy/qavm1

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --sourceType=VI "vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com?moref=vim.vm.VirtualMachine:qavm1"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: Administrator

Password: **********

Error: Invalid object type specified (not a ManagedEntity subtype)

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool "vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com?moref=vim.vm.VirtualMachine:qavm1"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: Administrator

Password: **********

Error: Invalid object type specified (not a ManagedEntity subtype)

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool "vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: Administrator

Password: **********

Error: Locator does not refer to an object: vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com:443/Foo / Bar Network/host/las13.foo.com

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool "vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com/Foo %2f Bar Network?ds=[EqualLogic] qavm1/qavm1.vmx"

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: Administrator

Password: *********

Please enter login information for source vi://vsphere2.foo.com/

Username: Administrator

Password: **********

Error: Locator does not refer to an object: vi://Administrator@vsphere2.foo.com:443/Foo %2f Bar Network?ds=[EqualLogic]%20qavm1/qavm1.vmx

[root@qavm34 tmp]# ovftool --version

VMware ovftool 3.0.1 (build-801290)

[root@qavm34 tmp]#

Hi,

I am unable to convert the VM to OVF format.

MyMac $ ovftool Windows\ 7.vmx
Error: Locale initialization failed.
Completed with errors

I followed the steps in other thread to fix locale issue, then I got the following error

MyMac $ ovftool Windows\ 7.vmx
Error: Failed to open file: Windows 7.vmx
MyMac $ ovftool "Windows 7.vmx"
Error: Failed to open file: Windows 7.vmx

MyMac $ ls
Windows 7-s001.vmdk    Windows 7-s005.vmdk    Windows 7-s009.vmdk    Windows 7-s013.vmdk    Windows 7-s017.vmdk    Windows 7-s021.vmdk    Windows 7.vmsd
Windows 7-s002.vmdk    Windows 7-s006.vmdk    Windows 7-s010.vmdk    Windows 7-s014.vmdk    Windows 7-s018.vmdk    Windows 7.nvram        Windows 7.vmx
Windows 7-s003.vmdk    Windows 7-s007.vmdk    Windows 7-s011.vmdk    Windows 7-s015.vmdk    Windows 7-s019.vmdk    Windows 7.plist        Windows 7.vmxf
Windows 7-s004.vmdk    Windows 7-s008.vmdk    Windows 7-s012.vmdk    Windows 7-s016.vmdk    Windows 7-s020.vmdk    Windows 7.vmdk        autoinst.flp

Regards,

Sawan Gupta

Hi,

I am getting below error while depoying a OVF template. Please suggest.

Failed to Deploy:Unable to access file: server1.vmdk.
The process cannot access the file "fullpath of vmdkfile\server1.vmdk' because it is being used by another process.

All,

First of all, apologies if this is an inappropriate forum. I do not have a support contact for this issue. We are VMware customers, however our licenses are purchased through an academic reseller. Our concern is that this bug has crept into recent releases and perhaps gone unnoticed in QA. It's serious enough for us to consider moving to other hypervisor products.

I believe there may be a serious bug in OVFtool's disk read code. We observe that VMs are created OK after upload or import, but disk contents are zero-filled. No error conditions are reported at any time. It is only clear that the bug has been exercised, when an uploaded or imported VM fails to boot.

We have several research VMs with multiple LANs, which run FreeBSD 8.2 in VMware Fusion 5.0.2, MacOS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion. I was also able to reproduce the bug with a fresh installation of vSphere ESXi 5.1 and ovftool 3.0.1. V

Using the separately packaged ovftool, I can export the VMs inside Fusion, by giving fully qualified paths to their VMX files. The bug appears to be in VMDK read. I exercised it in two use cases, Fusion OVA import and ESXi OVA upload, as follows:

1. If I import an affected OVA into Fusion from the GUI, Fusion will invoke its own copy of ovftool 3.0.1 to perform the import. VMs are created with a sane VMX file. VMDKs are created. However their contents are zero-filled, and the VMDK contents in the OVA have been ignored.
2. If I upload an affected OVA to ESXi, using ovftool and a vi:// target URL on the command line, the same bug is observed with ESXi. Again, the VMX is sane - we inspected this by SSHing into ESXi and manually reviewing the VMX on the VMFS data store with vi. The VMDK contents are zeroed on the VMFS datastore, and the VMDK contents in the OVA have been ignored.

ovftool seems, in some cases, to ignore the contents of the packaged VMDK files in OVAs, and those associated with VMX files from VMware products.

To date I have only been able to reproduce the issue with FreeBSD guests. The bug does not appear in all exported OVAs, however affected VM and OVA combinations will consistently demonstrate it.

• We first noticed this problem in October 2012, and have not been in a position to exercise it thoroughly until now.

• I can make an OVA available which demonstrates the issue. Please contact me privately to arrange. The files are typically 2GB in size.

Other observations:

• There is no problem with OVA generation. I have inspected the OVAs manually using tar, extracted the embedded VMDKs inside, converted them back to 2GB sparse format using vmware-vdiskmanager (or vmkfstools under ESXi), and loaded them into ESXi and Fusion respectively.

• Since ovftool was introduced, VMDKs must be uploaded manually using SFTP to avoid triggering the bug. The functionality in the vmware-vdiskmanager command which allows direct upload to ESXi servers has been removed.

• Casual inspection with DTrace under OS X reveals that ovftool seems to be reading the full OVA file contents. We initially thought there may been a problem with VMDK upload, however other guests have not been affected.

• The serialized format VMDK contents in the OVA are consistent with the original VMDKs. We verified this in one case with MD5 checksums. This requires denying all writes during the test.
• We also reproduced this bug with out-of-box, unmodified FreeBSD installations, as our research VMs use ZFS in GPT partition containers.

• We also noticed that Fusion's private copy of ovftool will break if ESXi specific options are specified in $HOME/.ovftool - although this is a separate issue from the main bug.
• No source code is supplied for ovftool, so users are not able to fix this issue themselves.

Workarounds:

• We load the OVA into Oracle VirtualBox, and re-export the OVA from there.
• This is undesirable for many reasons, the main one being that it loses all the network binding information, which is critical to our work.

thanks,

Bruce

Hi all.  I'm trying to archive some no-longer-used VMs with ovftool, and I've managed to save half of them.  The ovftool output looks like:

wpeters$ ovftool vi://root@zeus/Riverbed/VSH_250m /Volumes/Archive/VSH_250m.ova

Enter login information for source vi://zeus/

Username: root

Password: *********

Opening VI source: vi://root@zeus:443/Riverbed/VSH_250m

Opening OVA target: /Volumes/Archive/VSH_250m.ova

Writing OVA package: /Volumes/Archive/VSH_250m.ova

Transfer Completed                    

Completed successfully


 


The other half of the machines fail with the mysterious vim.fault.FileNotFound without saying which file isn't found.  I've looked at the settings for both successful and unsuccessful VMs and cannot figure out what the difference is:


 

wpeters$ ovftool vi://root@zeus/Riverbed/VSH_markt /Volumes/Archive/VSH_markt.ova

Enter login information for source vi://zeus/

Username: root

Password: *********

Opening VI source: vi://root@zeus:443/Riverbed/VSH_markt

Error: vim.fault.FileNotFound

Completed with errors

hi everyone

im trying to install Solar Winds virtualization manager on my Esxi 3.5.

The appliance is on OVA format.

i got o File--> Virtual Appliance -->Import-->Import the file and i get the next error:  An error occurred while parsing the OVF descriptor: System out of memory exeption.

Then i try to extract the ova file, and i get 4 new files, one of them a OVF. then i try to use it and i get the the next error: An error occurred while parsing the OVF descriptor : Unable to parse xml element ´Envelope´.

This is a OVF version error, 3.5 use a older version of OVF, (0.9 i think).

I dont know how to install this appliance , i hope u can help me.

SORRY FOR MY BAD ENGLISH!!!

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 access to my deployed virtual machine's serial console, not through a GUI window, but through ssh or telnet.  I finally found how to define a serial console so that I can telnet in, which is perfect, but now I'd like to automate the defining of that serial device without using the vSphere Client GUI.

I can define my serial port from the vSphere Client GUI after deploying my VM by powering off the VM, Edit Settings -> Add a Serial Port, check "Connect via Network" -> Network Backing -> Server (VM listens for connections), Port URI = telnet://10.36.0.85:7001, where 10.36.0.85 is my ESXi 4.1 server's IP address and 7001 is a random port.  When I power on my VM, I can telnet 10.36.0.85 7001 from a remote system and viola, I have serial console/terminal access.

In the vmx file, I can see

  serial0.present = "TRUE"

  serial0.yieldOnMsrRead = "TRUE"

  serial0.fileType = "network"

  serial0.fileName = "telnet://10.36.0.85:7001"

The question is, how can I define the above either in the ovf file before I deploy, as I deploy (I'm using ovftool from a remote system), or via a remote command afterwards, e.g. a vSphere CLI command?  When I try exporting the ovf template from the vSphere client, I get "Device 'Serial port 1' cannot be exported."

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,

I currently am trying to deploy an ovf onto an esxi machine. The ovf is currently located on the destination esxi machine.

Here is the command I was trying to use:

.\ovftool "https://<ip address>/folder/group1/Win7-5/Win7-5.ovf?dcPath=ha-datacenter&dsName=datastore1" vi://user:password@<ip address>

group1/Win7-5/Win7-5.ovf is the is the location of the ovf within the datastore.

When I try to execute this it has the error:

Error: Could not open URL https://<ip address>/folder/group1/Win7-5/Win7-5.ovf?dcPath=ha-datacenter&dsName=datastore1 (response code 404)

If i open up the vsphere UI and go through the deploy ovf wizard using

https://<ip address>/folder/group1/Win7-5/Win7-5.ovf?dcPath=ha-datacenter&dsName=datastore1  (same as above)

as the location of the ovf file it works fine.

If anyone can help me i would greatly appriciate it. I searched all over and couldnt find an answer anywhere else and couldnt figure it out when looking at the docs. Sorry if this is a repeat post.

Ray

I'm trying to convert a .ova into a .vmx using OVFTool 2.1.0 but after reaching 99% I get an "IO Error"/Disk Transfer Failed and then the .vmx is deleted.

During the extraction process everything appears fine - I can monitor the file size of the .vmx and it continues to increase before being abruptly deleted after the error occurs.

Both source/destination files are on my local disk.  Here's the output of OVFTool:

2011-11-16T11:25:33.998+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 2 (SIGINT)
2011-11-16T11:25:33.999+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 4 (SIGILL)
2011-11-16T11:25:33.999+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 22 (SIGABRT)
2011-11-16T11:25:33.999+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 8 (SIGFPE)
2011-11-16T11:25:33.999+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 15 (SIGTERM)
2011-11-16T11:25:33.999+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] [ovfTool.cpp] Using home directory C:\Users\mernst\AppData\Roaming\VMware\ovftool.cfg
2011-11-16T11:25:33.999+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] [ovfTool.cpp] OvfTool Environment:
--> /X:httpTimeout = "600"
--> /X:imageReadSize = "262144"
--> /X:logLevel = "trivia"
--> /X:logToConsole = "true"
--> /X:maxNumberOfTermSignals = "5"
--> /X:maxRedirects = "256"
--> /X:maximalDeltaConfSize = "8"
--> /X:maximalDeltaTreeSize = "6"
--> /X:progressSmoothing = "60"
--> /X:useMacNaming = "false"
--> /X:vCloudKeepTemplate = "true"
--> /X:vCloudTimeout = "3600"
--> /X:vimSessionTimeout = "600"
--> /authdPortSource = "902"
--> /authdPortTarget = "902"
--> /fencedMode = "bridged"
--> /prgPath = "c:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool"
--> /source = "C:\Temp\AETDemoVM_20111101.ova"
--> /target = "C:\VMs"
-->
2011-11-16T11:25:34.006+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] [ovfTool.cpp] Done initializing libs
2011-11-16T11:25:34.006+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] [ovfTool.cpp] Determining source
2011-11-16T11:25:34.006+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] [ovfTool.cpp] Determining target
Opening OVA source: C:\Temp\AETDemoVM_20111101.ova
2011-11-16T11:25:34.011+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] OVF Descriptor: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
--> <!--Generated by VMware VirtualCenter Server, User: Administrator, UTC time: 2011-11-01T21:34:14.675875Z-->
--> <Envelope vmw:buildId="build-455964" xmlns="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1" xmlns:cim="http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wscim/1/common" xmlns:ovf="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1" xmlns:rasd="http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wscim/1/cim-schema/2/CIM_ResourceAllocationSettingData" xmlns:vmw="http://www.vmware.com/schema/ovf" xmlns:vssd="http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wscim/1/cim-schema/2/CIM_VirtualSystemSettingData" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
-->   <References>
-->     <File ovf:href="AETDemoVM_20111101-disk1.vmdk" ovf:id="file1" ovf:size="24867252224" />
-->   </References>
-->   <DiskSection>
-->     <Info>Virtual disk information</Info>
-->     <Disk ovf:capacity="50" ovf:capacityAllocationUnits="byte * 2^30" ovf:diskId="vmdisk1" ovf:fileRef="file1" ovf:format="http://www.vmware.com/interfaces/specifications/vmdk.html#streamOptimized" ovf:populatedSize="52663681024" />
-->   </DiskSection>
-->   <NetworkSection>
-->     <Info>The list of logical networks</Info>
-->     <Network ovf:name="VM Network">
-->       <Description>The VM Network network</Description>
-->     </Network>
-->   </NetworkSection>
-->   <VirtualSystem ovf:id="AETDemoVM_20111101">
-->     <Info>A virtual machine</Info>
-->     <Name>AETDemoVM_20111101</Name>
-->     <OperatingSystemSection ovf:id="74" vmw:osType="windows7_64Guest">
-->       <Info>The kind of installed guest operating system</Info>
-->       <Description>Microsoft Windows 7 (64-bit)</Description>
-->     </OperatingSystemSection>
-->     <VirtualHardwareSection>
-->       <Info>Virtual hardware requirements</Info>
-->       <System>
-->         <vssd:ElementName>Virtual Hardware Family</vssd:ElementName>
-->         <vssd:InstanceID>0</vssd:InstanceID>
-->         <vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier>AETDemoVM_20111101</vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier>
-->         <vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-07</vssd:VirtualSystemType>
-->       </System>
-->       <Item>
-->         <rasd:AllocationUnits>hertz * 10^6</rasd:AllocationUnits>
-->         <rasd:Description>Number of Virtual CPUs</rasd:Description>
-->         <rasd:ElementName>1 virtual CPU(s)</rasd:ElementName>
-->         <rasd:InstanceID>1</rasd:InstanceID>
-->         <rasd:ResourceType>3</rasd:ResourceType>
-->         <rasd:VirtualQuantity>1</rasd:VirtualQuantity>
-->       </Item>
-->       <Item>
-->         <rasd:AllocationUnits>byte * 2^20</rasd:AllocationUnits>
-->         <rasd:Description>Memory Size</rasd:Description>
-->         <rasd:ElementName>2048MB of memory</rasd:ElementName>
-->         <rasd:InstanceID>2</rasd:InstanceID>
-->         <rasd:ResourceType>4</rasd:ResourceType>
-->         <rasd:VirtualQuantity>2048</rasd:VirtualQuantity>
-->       </Item>
-->       <Item>
-->         <rasd:Address>0</rasd:Address>
-->         <rasd:Description>SCSI Controller</rasd:Description>
-->         <rasd:ElementName>SCSI controller 0</rasd:ElementName>
-->         <rasd:InstanceID>3</rasd:InstanceID>
-->         <rasd:ResourceSubType>lsilogicsas</rasd:ResourceSubType>
-->         <rasd:ResourceType>6</rasd:ResourceType>
-->       </Item>
-->       <Item>
-->         <rasd:Address>1</rasd:Address>
-->         <rasd:Description>IDE Controller</rasd:Description>
-->         <rasd:ElementName>IDE 1</rasd:ElementName>
-->         <rasd:InstanceID>4</rasd:InstanceID>
-->         <rasd:ResourceType>5</rasd:ResourceType>
-->       </Item>
-->       <Item>
-->         <rasd:Address>0</rasd:Address>
-->         <rasd:Description>IDE Controller</rasd:Description>
-->         <rasd:ElementName>IDE 0</rasd:ElementName>
-->         <rasd:InstanceID>5</rasd:InstanceID>
-->         <rasd:ResourceType>5</rasd:ResourceType>
-->       </Item>
-->       <Item>
-->         <rasd:AddressOnParent>0</rasd:AddressOnParent>
-->         <rasd:ElementName>Hard disk 1</rasd:ElementName>
-->         <rasd:HostResource>ovf:/disk/vmdisk1</rasd:HostResource>
-->         <rasd:InstanceID>6</rasd:InstanceID>
-->         <rasd:Parent>3</rasd:Parent>
-->         <rasd:ResourceType>17</rasd:ResourceType>
-->       </Item>
-->       <Item ovf:required="false">
-->         <rasd:AddressOnParent>0</rasd:AddressOnParent>
-->         <rasd:AutomaticAllocation>false</rasd:AutomaticAllocation>
-->         <rasd:ElementName>CD/DVD drive 1</rasd:ElementName>
-->         <rasd:InstanceID>7</rasd:InstanceID>
-->         <rasd:Parent>4</rasd:Parent>
-->         <rasd:ResourceType>15</rasd:ResourceType>
-->       </Item>
-->       <Item>
-->         <rasd:AddressOnParent>7</rasd:AddressOnParent>
-->         <rasd:AutomaticAllocation>true</rasd:AutomaticAllocation>
-->         <rasd:Connection>VM Network</rasd:Connection>
-->         <rasd:Description>E1000 ethernet adapter on "VM Network"</rasd:Description>
-->         <rasd:ElementName>Network adapter 1</rasd:ElementName>
-->         <rasd:InstanceID>8</rasd:InstanceID>
-->         <rasd:ResourceSubType>E1000</rasd:ResourceSubType>
-->         <rasd:ResourceType>10</rasd:ResourceType>
-->       </Item>
-->       <Item ovf:required="false">
-->         <rasd:AddressOnParent>0</rasd:AddressOnParent>
-->         <rasd:AutomaticAllocation>false</rasd:AutomaticAllocation>
-->         <rasd:Description>Floppy Drive</rasd:Description>
-->         <rasd:ElementName>Floppy drive 1</rasd:ElementName>
-->         <rasd:InstanceID>9</rasd:InstanceID>
-->         <rasd:ResourceType>14</rasd:ResourceType>
-->       </Item>
-->     </VirtualHardwareSection>
-->   </VirtualSystem>
--> </Envelope>         
Opening VMX target: C:\VMs
2011-11-16T11:25:34.446+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] Creating disk C:\VMs\AETDemoVM_20111101\AETDemoVM_20111101-disk1.vmdk, 104857600 sectors, lsilogic
Writing VMX file: C:\VMs\AETDemoVM_20111101\AETDemoVM_20111101.vmx
2011-11-16T11:25:34.503+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] Using file size as progress measure

Disk progress: 02011-11-16T11:25:34.503+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] Opening disk target /AETDemoVM_20111101/VirtualLsiLogicSASController0:0

Disk progress: 1
Disk progress: 2
Disk progress: 3
Disk progress: 4
Disk progress: 5
Disk progress: 6
Disk progress: 7
Disk progress: 8
Disk progress: 9
Disk progress: 10
Disk progress: 11
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Disk progress: 43
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Disk progress: 49
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Disk progress: 51
Disk progress: 52
Disk progress: 53
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Disk progress: 55
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Disk progress: 90
Disk progress: 91
Disk progress: 92
Disk progress: 93
Disk progress: 94
Disk progress: 95
Disk progress: 96
Disk progress: 97
Disk progress: 98
Disk progress: 99
Disk Transfer Failed                      
Error: IO error
2011-11-16T12:06:51.863+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] Backtrace:
--> backtrace[00] rip 000000000049693a (no symbol)
--> backtrace[01] rip 000000000036d008 (no symbol)
--> backtrace[02] rip 000000000036dc1e (no symbol)
--> backtrace[03] rip 00000000003211cb (no symbol)
--> backtrace[04] rip 00000001400e17f3 (no symbol)
--> backtrace[05] rip 00000001400e1c1b (no symbol)
--> backtrace[06] rip 000000014007e566 (no symbol)
--> backtrace[07] rip 000000014007e8d6 (no symbol)
--> backtrace[08] rip 000000014007ed6d (no symbol)
--> backtrace[09] rip 000000014001af6f (no symbol)
--> backtrace[10] rip 000000014001b76a (no symbol)
--> backtrace[11] rip 000000014025f62e (no symbol)
--> backtrace[12] rip 00000000771c652d (no symbol)
--> backtrace[13] rip 00000000775ac521 (no symbol)
-->
2011-11-16T12:06:51.863+08:00 [03584 verbose 'Default'] Deleting file: C:\VMs\AETDemoVM_20111101\AETDemoVM_20111101-disk1.vmdk
Deleting directory: C:\VMs\AETDemoVM_20111101
Completed with errors

Greetings friends,

I have installed ovftool on a Linux machine with SLES 11 SP1 x86_64

I am currently experimenting on how to use ovftool, as i'm a total newbie considering it's use.

I currently have a vCenter Server 4.1, with IP 10.20.30.40. There i have the following structure:

10.20.30.40

     MyDataCenter

          Cluster1

          Cluster2

               MyVM

The datastore where the vmx is located is named NAS1

I want to convert this virtual machine to .ovf. But for starters, i would like to probe it. I'm using ovftool 2.1.0 and the user's guide says that the VMX type is supported. I thought to use vSphere Locator with Datastore (ds) query type. So, i execute the following:

ovftool vi://10.20.30.40/MyDataCenter?ds=[NAS1] MyVM/MyVM.vmx

After i'm asked for credentials, i get the following:

Please enter login information for source vi://10.20.30.40/
Username: xxxxxxx
Password: *************
Error: Curl error: Couldn't resolve host name
Completed with errors

Have you seen that before? Am i doing something wrong with the syntax? Or in general, am i using ovftool the wrong way?

Thank you for your help!

Peter

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 VM that I exported as an OVA as a "Just in Case" backup a while ago.  Today I had to use it and I cannot import it.

There was an ISO mounted when I did the export and it exported the ISO as well.  The error I get is when it tries to access the ISO, it fails.

I downloaded OVFtool in the hopes I could strip the ISO from the OVA, but I am getting an error trying to use the --noImageFiles option.  it tells me:

Is it possible to remove this ISO?

After searching through the forum I uninstalled OVFtool from my E: drive and put it on C: with the same result.  Here is the logToConsole:

E:\ESX\OVA's>ovftool --X:logToConsole Win7-Tax64.ova test.ova

2012-03-09T17:08:08.405-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 2

(SIGINT)

2012-03-09T17:08:08.405-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 4

(SIGILL)

2012-03-09T17:08:08.405-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 2

2 (SIGABRT)

2012-03-09T17:08:08.405-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 8

(SIGFPE)

2012-03-09T17:08:08.405-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 1

5 (SIGTERM)

2012-03-09T17:08:08.406-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] [ovfTool.cpp] Using home

directory C:\Users\ItsTooHot\AppData\Roaming\VMware\ovftool.cfg

2012-03-09T17:08:08.406-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] [ovfTool.cpp] OvfTool En

vironment:

--> /X:httpTimeout = "600"

--> /X:imageReadSize = "262144"

--> /X:logToConsole = "true"

--> /X:maxNumberOfTermSignals = "5"

--> /X:maxRedirects = "256"

--> /X:maximalDeltaConfSize = "8"

--> /X:maximalDeltaTreeSize = "6"

--> /X:progressSmoothing = "60"

--> /X:useMacNaming = "false"

--> /X:vCloudKeepTemplate = "true"

--> /X:vCloudTimeout = "3600"

--> /X:vimSessionTimeout = "600"

--> /authdPortSource = "902"

--> /authdPortTarget = "902"

--> /fencedMode = "bridged"

--> /prgPath = "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool"

--> /source = "Win7-Tax64.ova"

--> /target = "test.ova"

-->

2012-03-09T17:08:08.412-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] [ovfTool.cpp] Done initi

alizing libs

2012-03-09T17:08:08.412-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] [ovfTool.cpp] Determinin

g source

2012-03-09T17:08:08.412-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] [ovfTool.cpp] Determinin

g target

Opening OVA source: Win7-Tax64.ova

2012-03-09T17:08:08.479-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] OVF Descriptor: <?xml ve

rsion="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

--> <!--Generated by VMware VirtualCenter Server, User: ItsTooHot, UTC time: 201

2-03-02T23:49:58.21025Z-->

--> <Envelope vmw:buildId="build-345043" xmlns="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/enve

lope/1" xmlns:cim="http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wscim/1/common" xmlns:ovf="http:

//schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1" xmlns:rasd="http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wsci

m/1/cim-schema/2/CIM_ResourceAllocationSettingData" xmlns:vmw="http://www.vmware

.com/schema/ovf" xmlns:vssd="http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wscim/1/cim-schema/2/C

IM_VirtualSystemSettingData" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instanc

e">

-->   <References>

-->     <File ovf:href="Win7-Tax64-disk1.vmdk" ovf:id="file1" ovf:size="80291440

64" />

-->     <File ovf:href="Win7-Tax64-file1.iso" ovf:id="file2" ovf:size="331949670

4" />

-->   </References>

-->   <DiskSection>

-->     <Info>Virtual disk information</Info>

-->     <Disk ovf:capacity="70" ovf:capacityAllocationUnits="byte * 2^30" ovf:di

skId="vmdisk1" ovf:fileRef="file1" ovf:format="http://www.vmware.com/interfaces/

specifications/vmdk.html#streamOptimized" ovf:populatedSize="18292015104" />

-->   </DiskSection>

-->   <NetworkSection>

-->     <Info>The list of logical networks</Info>

-->     <Network ovf:name="VM Network">

-->       <Description>The VM Network network</Description>

-->     </Network>

-->   </NetworkSection>

-->   <VirtualSystem ovf:id="Win7-Tax64">

-->     <Info>A virtual machine</Info>

-->     <Name>Win7-Tax64</Name>

-->     <OperatingSystemSection ovf:id="1" vmw:osType="windows7_64Guest">

-->       <Info>The kind of installed guest operating system</Info>

-->       <Description>Microsoft Windows 7 (64-bit)</Description>

-->     </OperatingSystemSection>

-->     <VirtualHardwareSection>

-->       <Info>Virtual hardware requirements</Info>

-->       <System>

-->         <vssd:ElementName>Virtual Hardware Family</vssd:ElementName>

-->         <vssd:InstanceID>0</vssd:InstanceID>

-->         <vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier>Win7-Tax64</vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifi

er>

-->         <vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-07</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

-->       </System>

-->       <Item>

-->         <rasd:AllocationUnits>hertz * 10^6</rasd:AllocationUnits>

-->         <rasd:Description>Number of Virtual CPUs</rasd:Description>

-->         <rasd:ElementName>2 virtual CPU(s)</rasd:ElementName>

-->         <rasd:InstanceID>1</rasd:InstanceID>

-->         <rasd:ResourceType>3</rasd:ResourceType>

-->         <rasd:VirtualQuantity>2</rasd:VirtualQuantity>

-->       </Item>

-->       <Item>

-->         <rasd:AllocationUnits>byte * 2^20</rasd:AllocationUnits>

-->         <rasd:Description>Memory Size</rasd:Description>

-->         <rasd:ElementName>2048MB of memory</rasd:ElementName>

-->         <rasd:InstanceID>2</rasd:InstanceID>

-->         <rasd:ResourceType>4</rasd:ResourceType>

-->         <rasd:VirtualQuantity>2048</rasd:VirtualQuantity>

-->       </Item>

-->       <Item>

-->         <rasd:Address>0</rasd:Address>

-->         <rasd:Description>SCSI Controller</rasd:Description>

-->         <rasd:ElementName>SCSI controller 0</rasd:ElementName>

-->         <rasd:InstanceID>3</rasd:InstanceID>

-->         <rasd:ResourceSubType>lsilogicsas</rasd:ResourceSubType>

-->         <rasd:ResourceType>6</rasd:ResourceType>

-->       </Item>

-->       <Item>

-->         <rasd:Address>1</rasd:Address>

-->         <rasd:Description>IDE Controller</rasd:Description>

-->         <rasd:ElementName>IDE 1</rasd:ElementName>

-->         <rasd:InstanceID>4</rasd:InstanceID>

-->         <rasd:ResourceType>5</rasd:ResourceType>

-->       </Item>

-->       <Item>

-->         <rasd:Address>0</rasd:Address>

-->         <rasd:Description>IDE Controller</rasd:Description>

-->         <rasd:ElementName>IDE 0</rasd:ElementName>

-->         <rasd:InstanceID>5</rasd:InstanceID>

-->         <rasd:ResourceType>5</rasd:ResourceType>

-->       </Item>

-->       <Item>

-->         <rasd:AddressOnParent>0</rasd:AddressOnParent>

-->         <rasd:ElementName>Hard disk 1</rasd:ElementName>

-->         <rasd:HostResource>ovf:/disk/vmdisk1</rasd:HostResource>

-->         <rasd:InstanceID>6</rasd:InstanceID>

-->         <rasd:Parent>3</rasd:Parent>

-->         <rasd:ResourceType>17</rasd:ResourceType>

-->       </Item>

-->       <Item>

-->         <rasd:AddressOnParent>0</rasd:AddressOnParent>

-->         <rasd:AutomaticAllocation>true</rasd:AutomaticAllocation>

-->         <rasd:ElementName>CD/DVD Drive 1</rasd:ElementName>

-->         <rasd:HostResource>ovf:/file/file2</rasd:HostResource>

-->         <rasd:InstanceID>7</rasd:InstanceID>

-->         <rasd:Parent>4</rasd:Parent>

-->         <rasd:ResourceType>15</rasd:ResourceType>

-->       </Item>

-->       <Item>

-->         <rasd:AddressOnParent>7</rasd:AddressOnParent>

-->         <rasd:AutomaticAllocation>true</rasd:AutomaticAllocation>

-->         <rasd:Connection>VM Network</rasd:Connection>

-->         <rasd:Description>E1000 ethernet adapter on "VM Network"</rasd:Descr

iption>

-->         <rasd:ElementName>Network adapter 1</rasd:ElementName>

-->         <rasd:InstanceID>8</rasd:InstanceID>

-->         <rasd:ResourceSubType>E1000</rasd:ResourceSubType>

-->         <rasd:ResourceType>10</rasd:ResourceType>

-->       </Item>

-->     </VirtualHardwareSection>

-->   </VirtualSystem>

--> </Envelope>

Opening OVA target: test.ova

2012-03-09T17:08:08.490-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] Closing writer. Locator:

test.ovf (SHA1: 352f265785c162cd8bf180f257a7876dbacf34c4, Written bytes: 4962)

2012-03-09T17:08:08.491-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] Closing writer. Locator:

test.mf (SHA1: 05aeacecbe7778a0bfa4bc10ab9f6e6fc713aaa9, Written bytes: 184)

Writing OVA package: test.ova

2012-03-09T17:08:08.492-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] Using file size as progr

ess measure

Disk Transfer Failed

Error: Invalid access to memory location.

2012-03-09T17:08:08.495-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] Backtrace:

--> backtrace[00] rip 000000000047693a (no symbol)

--> backtrace[01] rip 000000000034d008 (no symbol)

--> backtrace[02] rip 000000000034dc1e (no symbol)

--> backtrace[03] rip 00000000003011cb (no symbol)

--> backtrace[04] rip 0000000000475df3 (no symbol)

--> backtrace[05] rip 000000000048a2fc (no symbol)

--> backtrace[06] rip 000000014001d7ab (no symbol)

--> backtrace[07] rip 000000014009b945 (no symbol)

--> backtrace[08] rip 000000014009ce71 (no symbol)

--> backtrace[09] rip 0000000140022137 (no symbol)

--> backtrace[10] rip 0000000140049b91 (no symbol)

--> backtrace[11] rip 000000014007e8b2 (no symbol)

--> backtrace[12] rip 000000014007ed6d (no symbol)

--> backtrace[13] rip 000000014001af6f (no symbol)

--> backtrace[14] rip 000000014001b76a (no symbol)

--> backtrace[15] rip 000000014025f62e (no symbol)

--> backtrace[16] rip 0000000076d9652d (no symbol)

--> backtrace[17] rip 00000000770dc521 (no symbol)

-->

2012-03-09T17:08:08.496-05:00 [08672 verbose 'Default'] Deleting file: test.ova

Completed with errors

E:\ESX\OVA's>

Was giving an SSL error, now giving a connecgt error. No firewall involved. I wonder Windows does not have ssh, so, why is vConverter using ssh.

Any help much appreciated.