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 unable to get ovftool to export a vm from my server that has spaces in the path to the vmx file.

Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks!

On the server:

~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms

Vmid Name             File Guest                              OS Version     Annotation

112  ar-vm            [sata3] har_vm/har_vm.vmx                rhel5_64Guest  vmx-07

16   eluefin          [sata1] eluefin/eluefin.vmx              rhel4_64Guest  vmx-07

32   igloo (RH5)      [sata0] igloo (RH5)/igloo (RH5).vmx      rhel5_64Guest  vmx-07           

When I try to export "igloo (RH5)":

C:\OVF_Tool>ovftool.exe  --compress=9 --X:logToConsole "vi://root:doublesecret@hoo.lgc.com/ha-datacenter?ds=[sata0] igloo (RH5)/igloo (RH5).vmx" F:\igloo

2013-05-23T12:55:47.089-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] [SSL_DB] Using C:\Users\owjune\AppData\Roaming\VMware\ovftool_SSLDB as SSL DB

2013-05-23T12:55:47.105-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 2 (SIGINT)

2013-05-23T12:55:47.105-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 4 (SIGILL)

2013-05-23T12:55:47.120-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 22 (SIGABRT)

2013-05-23T12:55:47.120-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 8 (SIGFPE)

2013-05-23T12:55:47.120-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Subscribing to signal: 15 (SIGTERM)

2013-05-23T12:55:47.120-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] OvfTool Version: VMware ovftool 3.0.1 (build-801290)

2013-05-23T12:55:47.120-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Using home directory: C:\Users\owjune\AppData\Roaming\VMware\ovftool.cfg

2013-05-23T12:55:47.120-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] OvfTool Environment:

--> /X:httpTimeout = "0"

--> /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:vCloudEnableGuestCustomization = "false"

--> /X:vCloudKeepTemplate = "true"

--> /X:vCloudTimeout = "3600"

--> /X:vimSessionTimeout = "600"

--> /authdPortSource = "902"

--> /authdPortTarget = "902"

--> /compress = "9"

--> /fencedMode = "bridged"

--> /prgPath = "C:\OVF_Tool"

--> /source = "vi://root:doublesecret@hoo.lgc.com/ha-datacenter?ds=[sata0] igloo (RH5)/igloo (RH5).vmx"

--> /target = "F:\igloo"

--> /vCloudTemplate = "false"

-->

2013-05-23T12:55:47.152-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Done initializing libs

2013-05-23T12:55:47.152-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Determining source

2013-05-23T12:55:47.152-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Determining target

2013-05-23T12:55:47.152-05:00 [02908 verbose 'HttpConnectionPool-000000'] HttpConnectionPoolImpl created. maxPoolConnections = 20; idleTimeout = 900000000; maxOpenConnections = 20; maxConnectionAge = 0

2013-05-23T12:55:47.152-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Getting http page: https://hoo.lgc.com/sdk/vimServiceVersions.xml

2013-05-23T12:55:47.152-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Proxy host

2013-05-23T12:55:47.167-05:00 [00756 info 'Default'] Thread attached

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [03816 verbose 'Default'] CURL: header data removed

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [03816 verbose 'Default'] CURL: header data removed

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [03816 verbose 'Default'] CURL: header data removed

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [03816 verbose 'Default'] CURL: header data removed

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [03816 verbose 'Default'] CURL: header data removed

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [03816 verbose 'Default'] CURL: header data removed

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [03816 verbose 'Default'] CURL: header data removed

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [03816 verbose 'Default'] CURL: header data removed

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] [ViConnection] Using vim API version: 4.1

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [02168 info 'Default'] Thread attached

2013-05-23T12:55:47.183-05:00 [03780 info 'Default'] Thread attached

2013-05-23T12:55:47.198-05:00 [03920 info 'Default'] Thread attached

2013-05-23T12:55:47.198-05:00 [03192 info 'Default'] Thread attached

2013-05-23T12:55:47.198-05:00 [02752 info 'Default'] Thread attached

2013-05-23T12:55:47.245-05:00 [02908 verbose 'HttpConnectionPool-000001'] HttpConnectionPoolImpl created. maxPoolConnections = 1; idleTimeout = 900000000; maxOpenConnections = 1; maxConnectionAge = 0

2013-05-23T12:55:47.261-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Keeping VI session alive

Opening VI source: vi://root@hoo.lgc.com:443/ha-datacenter

2013-05-23T12:55:47.432-05:00 [02908 verbose 'Default'] Backtrace:

--> backtrace[00] rip 000007fef141722a

--> backtrace[01] rip 000007fef12df578

--> backtrace[02] rip 000007fef12e078e

--> backtrace[03] rip 000007fef129266b

--> backtrace[04] rip 000007feeeb0d3d1

--> backtrace[05] rip 000007fef0f703b8

--> backtrace[06] rip 000007fef0f707e9

--> backtrace[07] rip 000007fef0f8efbe

--> backtrace[08] rip 000007feee8b024e

--> backtrace[09] rip 000000013f83824d

--> backtrace[10] rip 000000013f7aca0d

--> backtrace[11] rip 000000013f7ad04a

--> backtrace[12] rip 000000013fa3a426

--> backtrace[13] rip 0000000076b5b1bd

--> backtrace[14] rip 0000000076d66861

-->

Error: vim.fault.FileNotFound

Completed with errors

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,

Hello There,

OvfTool: 3.0.1

vCloud Director(VCD): 5.1

I use ovftool 3.0.1 to upload an ovf file to VCD and the server return error after upload completely.

It works previously while use ovftool 2.1 with VCD 1.5

I use ovftool 3.0.1 command line to upload template like this:

ovftool --X:logFile=upload.log --machineOutput --powerOn --acceptAllEulas --ipAllocationPolicy=transientPolicy "--net:mynetwork01=mynetwork01" --name=test88t "/tmp/ova/vwin1/vwin1.ovf" "vcloud://xxx:xxx@mynetwork/?org=zhongnan&vappTemplate=test88t&vdc=zhongnan-ALLOC-02&catalog=ISO%20Library" | while read x ; do echo $x; done

The ovf uploaded to VCD is complete, however I got an error result:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<InstantiateVAppTemplateParams name="test88t" deploy="false" powerOn="false" xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5"

                               xmlns:ovf="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1">

  <InstantiationParams>

    <NetworkConfigSection>

      <ovf:Info>Configuration parameters for logical networks</ovf:Info>

      <NetworkConfig networkName="mynetwork">

        <Configuration>

          <ParentNetwork href="https://mynetwork/api/network/xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx"

                         type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.network+xml" name="mynetwork-01"/>

          <FenceMode>bridged</FenceMode>

          <AddressingMode>POOL</AddressingMode>

        </Configuration>

        <IsDeployed>true</IsDeployed>

      </NetworkConfig>

    </NetworkConfigSection>

  </InstantiationParams>

  <Source href="https://mynetwork/api/vAppTemplate/vappTemplate-aaa-bbb-ccc-ddd"/>

  <AllEULAsAccepted>true</AllEULAsAccepted>

</InstantiateVAppTemplateParams>

        2013-06-11T04:33:17.786-07:00 [7FA9BA208720 verbose 'Default'] VCloud response body:

        --> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

        --> <Error xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5" minorErrorCode="BAD_REQUEST" message="Bad request

-->  - Unexpected JAXB Exception

-->  - cvc-complex-type.2.4.a: Invalid content was found starting with element 'AddressingMode'. One of '{&quot;http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5":RetainNetInfoAcrossDeployments,

&quot;http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5":Features, &quot;http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5":d, &quot;http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5":RouterInfo}' is expected."

                   majorErrorCode="400" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"

                   xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5http://sd1.aiscloud.net/api/v1.5/schema/master.xsd"></Error>

        -->

        2013-06-11T04:33:17.788-07:00 [7FA9BA208720 verbose 'Default'] Backtrace:

        --> backtrace[00] rip 00007fa9b42a0f44 Vmacore::System::Stacktrace::CaptureWork(unsigned int)

        --> backtrace[01] rip 00007fa9b406bca4 Vmacore::System::SystemFactoryImpl::CreateQuickBacktrace(Vmacore::Ref<Vmacore::System::Backtrace>&)

        --> backtrace[02] rip 00007fa9b4001ef8 Vmacore::Throwable::Throwable(std::string const&)

        --> backtrace[03] rip 000000000061e7c1 /usr/lib/vmware-ovftool/ovftool.bin() [0x61e7c1]

        --> backtrace[04] rip 000000000060fca8 /usr/lib/vmware-ovftool/ovftool.bin() [0x60fca8]

        --> backtrace[05] rip 000000000064eb65 /usr/lib/vmware-ovftool/ovftool.bin() [0x64eb65]

        --> backtrace[06] rip 000000000064fd7a /usr/lib/vmware-ovftool/ovftool.bin() [0x64fd7a]

        --> backtrace[07] rip 0000000000569c84 /usr/lib/vmware-ovftool/ovftool.bin() [0x569c84]

        --> backtrace[08] rip 00000000004c4b6e /usr/lib/vmware-ovftool/ovftool.bin() [0x4c4b6e]

        --> backtrace[09] rip 00000000004c7be4 /usr/lib/vmware-ovftool/ovftool.bin() [0x4c7be4]

        --> backtrace[10] rip 00007fa9b1cb1c4d /lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xfd) [0x7fa9b1cb1c4d]

        --> backtrace[11] rip 00000000004a2f79 std::basic_streambuf<char, std::char_traits<char>>::xsgetn(char*, long)

Please let me if this is a bug in ovftool to integrate VCD 5.1.

Thanks,

Jeff

okay, I know this isn't developed yet, but I thought I would ask about.

first I love VMware workstation, amazing tool. and most VMware products are quick and easy for the average user.

okay to meat of the topic. What would it take to install VMware natively withOUT a host operating system"

hear me out. I really love virtualization, and the option it gives to run ANY OS, but the drawback would be the HOST OS, I WISH there was a way to install a very simple OS that VMware creates or uses, to launch it's workstation. maybe call it "LiteStation". then with the same use of the workstation, load your OS, or OS's in many cases, being able to with such a low foot print might be able to open some doors for new technology.

now, the simple OS, it need limited capabilities, like driver install (preferably win drivers as they are the most common and most ready, but Linux drivers would be the most understandable), limited programs or possibly no program installs. but it need enough to use the full potential of the machine, so x64 would be required along with VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI + acceleration etc.... with no browsers there won't be a need to install much security, just force it to connect, but not use the network connection except to switch it over to bridge the OS's in VM-LS.

I'm sure this software is not out there yet. but think of the possibilities, it would become a 'virtual' boot-loader... running all OS's in a virtual environment, utilizing the max potential of multi-platform. I could see the diminish of speed as we allocate a % of the native hardware for use by the VM's, but still. No longer would dual booting be a norm, having to restart just to use a different OS, but booting both would increase. sure we have native, but sometimes I don't want to mess with Win/Lin/OS just to get to the one I want. and I feel the native OS limits the use of the virtual machine.

or maybe something like this is already running.... I just haven't found out.

Anyways thanks for the listening... who knows maybe VMware might want to implement something like LiteStation in their software arsenal....

Accipitor

Is it possible to query what compression was run against an OVF when it was created?

What is the default compression level for ovftool?

Hello everybody,

I been using ovftool to build virtual appliance and so far its pretty much stable.

We basically have 2 vms viz server and database which gets deployed through single ova.

Both the vms have separate vmdks and they are referenced inside ovf.

We have a requirement to selectively choose vms while deploying through vApp.

I have searched for the option to selectively choose vms and so far i couldn't find any option that provides a selecting option to choose either server or database.

Even, we are looking something for option of deploying 2 server and 3 database vms out of single ova.

I know we can have 5 vms deployed if I bundle 2 server vmds and 3 database vmdks and populate ovf with data .with corresponding property values.

But the ask is to have only 1 set of vmdks for server and database each and deploy multiple instances of these vms by selecting number of instances during deployment time.

I am also looking for an option to skip database and deploy only server through ova.

Appreciate your time for reading this discussion .

Thanks in advance.

Hello, I have been using VMWare for some time now, but new to this conversion tool and vCloud.


My current dilemma is getting a VMWare player VMX converted so I can upload it to vCloud. Seemed straightforward, but every time I convert it and then try to upload it to vCloud, I get 


a virtual system in the ovf file being uploaded requires unrecognized virtual hardware version


I have other platforms to move from as well- I hope this forum will get me where I need to be with those instances, but this error doesn't show when I search the forum. I assume that either I need a switch in there when running ovftool, or you simply can't convert a Player file into an OVF. I am testing the stand-alone convertor, stepping the output file down to VMX-9 to see if this will help.


...I notice there are a lot of questions about getting from one platform and format to another.


Is there no chart somewhere with all of this info in it? That is, FROM platform on X axis, TO platform on Y axis, Yes/no/details/link to more info/etc in cells as appropriate? I was not able to find one.

     Seems like we could use that... I have a very light team running the vCloud and they just aren't there for me with the conversion work I need to do- and that work is essentially all I need to do on the maintenance side of the fence. Plowing through all of the manuals and becoming an expert in what I need to do is also not an option...

I have an esxi 4.1 server that we are decommissioning as part of a move.  We've decided to archive some of the VMs that were part of a test bed, in case we need to revive them later.  I've been copying the VMs directly to a USB hard drive on my Mac with ovftool, but I've found that about half of the testbed VMs cannot be copied.  Here is an example of a failure:

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

Enter login information for source vi://zeus.dvt.tachyon.net/

Username: root

Password: *********

Opening VI source: vi://root@zeus.dvt.tachyon.net:443/Riverbed/VSH_markt

Error: vim.fault.FileNotFound

Completed with errors


 


And a success, on another VM:

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

Enter login information for source vi://zeus.dvt.tachyon.net/

Username: root

Password: *********

Opening VI source: vi://root@zeus.dvt.tachyon.net:443/Riverbed/VSH_250m

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

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

Transfer Completed                    

Completed successfully


 


Does anyone have any suggestions of what to look for?  I've started and stopped these VMs from the console, so I'm certain the storage is still available, etc.


Thanks!

Hi everyone,


When I tried to launch the deploy command without indicating the host domain (scivsd05), the following error was launched: 

ovftool "X:logToConsole" "datastore=myds" "network=mynet" "machineOutput" --name="test13" test.ova "vi://user:pass@vcenter.domain.lan/&lt;mydc&gt;/host/&lt;mycluster&gt;/scivsd05"

2014-12-02T16:11:24.881+01:00 verbose Curl_perform error code 6 (Couldn't resolve host name)

2014-12-02T16:11:24.882+01:00 verbose CURL error buffer: Could not resolve host: scivsd05 (Domain name not found)

2014-12-02T16:11:24.882+01:00 verbose Connection error during upload

2014-12-02T16:11:24.882+01:00 verbose Connection error, sleep then retry (10 remaining)

If I indicate the host domain, then an "Locator does not refer to an object" error is launched:


ovftool "X:logToConsole" "datastore=myds" "network=mynet" "machineOutput" --name="test13" test.ova "vi://user:pass@vcenter.domain.lan/&lt;mydc&gt;/host/&lt;mycluster&gt;/scivsd05.domain.lan"

The name resolution for the ESXi host "scivsd05.domain.lan" is correct from both machines, the vCenter machine and the machine where OVFTool is installed.


Any idea? Thanks in advance!


 

ovftool "X:logToConsole" "datastore=myds" "network=mynet" "machineOutput" --name="test13" test.ova "vi://user:pass@vcenter.domain.lan/&lt;mydc&gt;/host/&lt;mycluster&gt;/scivsd05"

2014-12-02T16:11:24.881+01:00 verbose Curl_perform error code 6 (Couldn't resolve host name)

2014-12-02T16:11:24.882+01:00 verbose CURL error buffer: Could not resolve host: scivsd05 (Domain name not found)

2014-12-02T16:11:24.882+01:00 verbose Connection error during upload

2014-12-02T16:11:24.882+01:00 verbose Connection error, sleep then retry (10 remaining)

ovftool "X:logToConsole" "datastore=myds" "network=mynet" "machineOutput" --name="test13" test.ova "vi://user:pass@vcenter.domain.lan/&lt;mydc&gt;/host/&lt;mycluster&gt;/scivsd05.domain.lan"

Hi, 


We currently are building a vmx using packer via either vmware workstation or vmware fusion, depending on whther it's running on ubuntu or a mac. When the vmx is either converted into an OVF, it maintains the network + nat i.e. connectiontype=nat etc. Despite passing in --vCloudTemplate when uploading it to vcloud, the template once uploaded still seems to maintain the network so when we provision. the "nat" is transposed into being an actual network name. 


ovftool --version


VMware ovftool 4.0.0 (build-2060496)


 


Is the version i am using. I am not sure if when generating the ovf via ovftool with --vCloudTemplate whether the ovf generated should transform or whether it's purely just when you pass to vcloud:// protocol  If the former, then i can test locally without uploading it. 


 


Even using --nw:none causes it to want to find a network called "none". 


 


This is becoming very inflexible for managing different images in different ways, if there isn't a consistent way of creating an image suitable for vcloud director. Is there something we should be doing, we don't want to be editing the vmx directly, however, that's basically what it is going to boil down to. 


 


Any help gladly welcome. 

Hi, does anyone know if there is a way to set the admin password for a virtual machine being deployed using the --prop options in the tool.


Thanks, Paul

Dear all,

My company will be closed soon and we need export the finance related VM to keep for several years for audit purpose.

We are using vCenter 5.0 right now. Which format should we used for export VM? OVF or OVA?

There will have chance that the VM need import again and we hope the format will be more favour to be import in the future vCenter after  5-6 years.

Please kindly help.

Ivan

I used the ovf tool with the export of an ova created in VirtualBox. I am getting an error:


The OVF package requires unsupported  hardware.


Details: Line 83: OVF hardware element 'Resource Type' with instance ID 7: No support for the virtual hardware device type '35'.


 


I am not sure where to go and what value to change it to.  Thanks for any advice that you can provide.

I have tried everything and having trouble with this command and here is the error I am getting.  I have tried "--network=VM Network" and every option I can think of and those options seems correct because the command does execute, but I get the same results.  The thing is I do not currently need a network adapter installed on this machine after I bring it into the VMWare environment

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool&gt;ovftool.exe --datastore=EVA1Disk1 --net work="Host Only" c:\Temp\Netscaler\NSVPX-ESX-9.1-101.5.ovf vi://root@128.1.60.200

Opening OVF source: c:\Temp\Netscaler\NSVPX-ESX-9.1-101.5.ovf Please enter login information for target vi://128.1.60.200/ Username: root Password: ********* Opening VI target: vi://root@128.1.60.200/Error: No network mapping specified OVF networks:  NS_NIC_1_1  VM Network Target networks:  Host Only  VM Network

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.

(Easy) Question… Regarding the use of global configuration file (ovftool.cfg) and local configuration file with OVFTOOL.

Syntax is given only for comments and parameters which are name-value pairs, e.g. datastore=DATASTORE-NAME. 

For a single parameter without a corresponding value, e.g. –acceptAllEulas, should these parameters be expressly set to TRUE?

Or can they simply be present (no equals sign)?  Both styles seem to work properly for --acceptAllEulas option.

Example:  which of the following CFG files shows the expected syntax?   Or are both acceptable?

acceptAllEulas=true

disableVerification=true

quiet=true

datastore=S123D0001

ipAllocationPolicy=fixed

or

acceptAllEulas

disableVerification

quiet

datastore=S123D0001

ipAllocationPolicy=fixed

(Yeah, I know - this question probably is a gimme.    Just curious if there's anything to trip over here. ) 

=cjs

Message was edited by: cjstaples-emc -- sorry, original formatting garbage

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

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 have created CentOS VM in ESXi 4.1 server and i have exported this VM into OVF using vSphere Client 4.1 with export OVF option. Because I wanted use and test this same VM  in other following VM Ware products.

      ESXi 4.0

      ESX 4.0/4.1

      VM Player / Fusion.

Here my question is that , Can we use this OVF (generated through export option in vSphere Client 4.1) in the above all VMWare products to create VM? is it compatable with all the VM Products?

Please let me know your inputs and suggestions on this.

Thanks in advance.

KCS