How do I create a .ova or .ovf file?

[blake1024]

I am on a Linux box.  I installed ovftool.  I then ran:

 

 

ovftool myvm.vmx myvm.ova
      and
ovftool myvm.vmx myvm.ovf

 

 

The resulting ova and ovf files are under 10K but the vmdk file is 153G,  Obviously the ovf and ova files do not include the disk file.  I assumed that I would end up with files that contained the entire VM but they don't.  How can I export the entire VM to an ova or ovf file?

 

 

[UZM]

If you can't convert the ovf file with VMware ovftool. 
Another option is you can lunch a new VM in VMware Workstation with your vmdk and vmx files and then export the ovf file. 

[blake1024]

Thanks.  The export menu option is grayed out.  I've spent too much time on this.  My opinion is that VMware frowns upon the ability to interact with other VM companies so just like other public commercial companies, they make it as difficult as possible.  I will just re-install the OS and all the apps from scratch.  I'll remember this though! (And I'll be writing an article about it!)

[bluefirestorm]

Two obvious reasons why the "Export to OVF" is greyed out is when the VM is powered on or the VM is suspended. It is possible other scenarios other than these two could lead to the "Export to OVF" being greyed out; possible things I can think of is snapshots are present; physical disk/media is present/active in the VM. I don't use snapshots nor a physical disk for VMs so I can't confirm.

[blake1024]

The VM is powered off
The VM is not suspended
I have no snapshots
None of the files have been moved or made inaccessible

Got any other ideas?

 

[bluefirestorm]

If you are using Workstation Pro, there should be an "Export to OVF" in the UI (which in turn invokes the ovftool).

Otherwise, this is the output of ps -ef | grep ovftool when I exported a VM from the UI from Workstation Pro 16.2.5. Tbe output vmdk was a compressed version of the original VMDK. It is probably best to use a different destination path for the OVF export from the source VM path.

/usr/lib/vmware/../vmware-ovftool/ovftool.bin --machineOutput --X:logFile=/tmp/vmware-me/ovftool.log --X:logLevel=verbose --exportFlags=extraconfig --allowExtraConfig /home/me/vmware/IE11-Win81-VMWare/IE11-Win81-VMWare.vmx /home/me/Documents/win8ovf/IE11-Win81-VMWare.ovf