Import OVF Template - Unsupported hardware family 'vmx-10'

[victorhooi]

Hi,

We have a server running VMWare ESXi 5.0.

We're trying to use the Microsoft virtual images from here:

http://www.modern.ie/virtualization-tools#downloads

We've download the VMWare Player images, which contain three files, one of which is an OVF file.

In ESXi, we go to File, Deploy OVF Template, and we get the error message:

The OVF package requires unsupported hardware

Details: Line 25: Unsupported hardware family 'vmx-10'.

From reading online, this appears to be some kind of versioning issue - and VMX-10 images require the newer ESXi 5.5?

(For operational reasons, getting approval to do an upgrade to 5.5 is quite tricky at the moment).

Is there some way of changing/downgrading the OVF version for the virtual image, so that it will work on ESXi 5.0?

Cheers,

Victor

[akkayyakapisett]

Hi Victor,

Download the latest ovftool from vMware and convert it into vmx

Eg:

ovftool e:\myvirtualmachines\myovf\myimage.ovf e:\myvirtualmachines\myvmx\myimage.vmx

Now you have the vmx and vmdk with you.

Copy the vmdk to the vmfs datastore

use command on ESXi  vmkfstools -i <<source vmdk >> -d thin <<destination vmdk>>

It should fix the issue, i used it couple of times:smileylaugh:

Venkat

http://www.peeradmin.com

Award me points if it answers your question.

[Abhilash Basavarajaiah]

Venkat told you the tool to use but couple of changes. These are the steps you need to follow.

Download and install the OVFTool. Here's a link for that.

Then run the following command.

ovftool <path of .ovf file> <path for converted .vmx file>

Then you will get a VMX file. You will have to edit the Hardware version in it. Change it to a version that is compatible with your hardware. Once you do this, save the VMX file.

Then you need to convert the VMX back to OVF.

The command for that is

ovftool <path of .vmx file> <path for converted .ovf file>

After this is done you can deploy the OVF.

[MisterTibbs]

Thanks Abhilashhb

IT WORKED!

I used this method today to go from vmx-11 to vmx-10. Needed to move an Ubuntu production OVA from a newer host running ESXi 6.1 to a slightly older server running ESXi 5.5.

Because ovftool is a supported vmware tool, it seems less risky than other methods. But I am no expert in this area.

Just glad it worked, hoping it keeps running without issue... :smileyhappy:

[jindraaa]

To avoid wasting time extracting/rebuilding with OVF tool you can just edit the OVF file, change the line that says "VMX-XX" (in my case was 10) to read "07" or whatever version works with your ESXI. Then use a hashing utility to calculate the SHA-1 of the edited OVF file and replace the corresponding SHA-1 hash in the ".mf" file.

[Gianni_Corona]

Hi

I imported the OVF using Vmware Player version 7 (on Ubuntu, but I think also Windows version works) and then converted it  to ESX 5.1 using Vmware converter.

Bye

Gianni

[MCuzo]

jindraaa, you rule. This was a fast easy way to get this template loaded. Thanks!

[slickrule]

This was really helpful.Thanks

[virtualhoo]

Works - this should be "the answer".

[DashPartha]

Hey,

It worked for me as well and it was quick@

Thanks

Partha

[JaroslavOuhrabk]

 How do I "just edit the OVF file" ? With what program or editor? I don't get it  

[continuum]

ovf-files are similar to xml-files.

You can open them with the embedded editor of WinSCP (best option if the file is already stored on  the ESXi) or just use any decent Texteditor like Notepad+

 

Ulli

[JaroslavOuhrabk]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I formulated my question wrong. I had troubles opening the OVA file and getting to the .ovf file. Especially in a way that the file integrity remains in tact. I tried to use winRar, WinZip, 7Zip etc but the file was always "corrupted" when I tried to deploy it again. 

Of course I have edited the .ovf file, re-calulated its SHA1 and edited that value in the .mf file. Still was unable to deploy such OVA. 

After numerous trials and errors i have simply used 7zip to open the OVA file, then edited the .ovf inside and also deleted the .mf and the certificate files. 

I had to do this all inside the 7zip and after every change it re-packed the whole OVA, but this way it works and I was finally able to deploy the OVA's I had. 

Hope this will save someone's day. 

[dilshandiss]

Guys, I have the solution for this, so let me know how it goes;

I'm typing this in a hurry so please excuse typos

Scenario

We wanted to offload ESXi v6 since we have installed the hypervisor only on a few basic unmanaged servers which dont need advanced features. However, we (and looks like most of the vm community) are having problems with the vi client v6 and from my experiences guys, you have to go with vcenter and use the web gui as its not a recommended practise to use the vi client to manage each host. For our purposes though (and to not go off topic) we wanted to downgrade to esxi 5.1. The problem is that when you export vm's that are running esxi v6, it might shoot the following error

" the ovf package requires unsupported hardware, details line 25: unsupported hardware family vmx-11 "

Solution

What im describing here is the "free" path to doing this. There are much more streamlined and efficient ways to do this but I will not go into that here.

1. Take ova / ovf backups with the existing version of the hypervisor you are using
2. First, try to see whether you can deploy the exported ova / ovf format
3. if you are greeted with teh above mentioned error or similar, then do the following
4. Download the free vmware player and install it
5. open vm player and then open your virtual machine (it will start the importing process since its in ova / ovf format and vm player like workstation uses vmx and vmdk files)
6. once the import is complted and the relevant vmx and vmdk files have been generated, go forth and download & install vmware converter (also free)
7. then open it up and go to "convert machine" - select source type as "vmware workstation or other vmware virtual machine" - choose the vmx files that you saved in an earlier step, then type in your esxi host details (ip address, username an password)
8. now finish the wizard, sit back and see your files being sent and prepared by the host for use.

Hoping this will assist you guys, as it did for me. Thanks Gianni CoronaGianni Corona as I used that as a basis for this

[bbowman]

this solution worked perfectly for me.  thank you!

[CouchPotatoz]

Since you seem pretty on top of all this. I am tinkering, and have gotten ESXi 7 running on a raspberryPi. I am trying to get the Kent LoadMaster Load Balancer running, but they obviously don't provide files specific for ARM64. Not sure if what I am doing is even possible... but figure it might be if the files can be converters somehow. Any change you could advise or suggest? The load balancer default download attached is you can have any ideas (NB: I am novice at best).

Attachment(s)

Free-VLM-VMware-OVF-64bit.zip   126.82 MB 1 version

[socra]

jindraaajindraa solution works perfectly! I had to download from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/hashmyfiles.zip‌‌ to modify .mf file after alter .ovf file.

[wormlelo]

I want to thank

dilshandiss Oct 6, 2015 11:44 PM (Import OVF Template - Unsupported hardware family 'vmx-10'in response to victorhooi)

who provided a solution that worked for me.  My issue was that I had to change the networking settings.  I had a hardware failure on my home development hosts and I decided to do backups of all of my machines.  i also was building a MariaDB 10.1 cluster and I wanted to clone a VM and I could not figure out an easy way to export it with the ESXI 6.5.

Thanks for providing a solution that worked for me.