Deploy a Virtual Machine from an OVA File in the VMware ESXi

Web Deploy Limitation

OVA deployment is limited to files under 1 GB in size due to Web browser limitations. To deploy an OVA file greater than 1 GB, extract the OVA file using tar and provide the OVF and VMDK files separately.

Breakdown Limitation

To deploy a large OVA file, Use OVFTool Command to Deploy OVA Packages is better solution.

Deploy a VM via OVFTOOL

In this scenario, OVFTool has been installed in windows OS. Open command prompt and run as administrator. go to the VMware OVF Tool directory “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool”

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Run the command syntax to deploy OVA

ovftool --sourceType=OVA --acceptAllEulas --X:skipContentLength --disableVerification --noSSLVerify -ds=DataStore -n=NEWVM --net:"network=VM Network" "D:\tmp\OVA_import\a-large-ova-file.ova" vi://root:"P@ssw0rd"@10.10.10.254
OptionArgumentDescription
ovftoolN/ACommand to invoke the OVF Tool.
--sourceTypeOVASpecifies the type of the source file. In this case, it is an OVA file.
--acceptAllEulasN/ASkips the end user license agreement (EULA) acceptance prompt.
--X:skipContentLengthN/ASkips the content length check during upload.
--disableVerificationN/ADisables SSL certificate verification.
--noSSLVerifyN/ADisables SSL certificate verification.
-dsDataStoreSpecifies the name of the destination datastore.
-nNEWVMSpecifies the name of the new virtual machine.
--net"network=VM Network"Specifies the name of the network to which the virtual machine will be connected.
"D:\tmp\OVA_import\a-large-ova-file.ova"N/ASpecifies the path to the OVA file to be imported.
vi://root:"P@ssw0rd"@10.10.10.254N/ASpecifies the target location of the new virtual machine.

Note: The values for DataStore, NEWVM, VM Network, and the target location may vary depending on the specific environment and requirements.

No network mapping issue

This problem occurred because we didn’t know the OVA network or didn’t remember it, which caused the network mapping issue.

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Opening OVA source: D:\tmp\OVA_import\a-large-ova-file.ova The manifest validates Opening VI target: vi://[email protected]:443/ Error: Invalid OVF name (data mgmt) specified in net mapping. OVF networks: data mgmt. Target networks: CVM_Payload VM Network VM Network 2 svm-iscsi-pg Completed with errors

Re-mapping the network

The fix involves specifying the correct network names in the mapping using the –net option. To do this, use the syntax –net:"ovf_network_name=target_network_name".

--net:"data=VM Network" --net:"mgmt=VM Network 2"

In this case, the OVA network names are “data” and “mgmt”, which should be mapped to “VM Network” and “VM Network 2”.

Run the correct (final) command syntax to deploy OVA

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool>ovftool  --sourceType=OVA --acceptAllEulas --X:skipContentLength --disableVerification --noSSLVerify -ds=DataStore -n=NEWVM --net:"data=VM Network" --net:"mgmt=VM Network 2" "D:\tmp\OVA_import\a-large-ova-file.ova" vi://root:"P@ssw0rd"@10.10.10.254

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Opening OVA source: D:\tmp\OVA_import\a-large-ova-file.ova The manifest validates Opening VI target: vi://[email protected]:443/ Deploying to VI: vi://[email protected]:443/ Transfer Completed Completed successfully

Reference