VirtualBox Converting DVDK to VMWare

Info Box Applies to DVDK

Introduction

DVDK is provided as a VirtualBox virtual machine. Sometimes customers prefer using VMWare as virtualization software, so a method for the conversion of the virtual machine from the VirtualBox format to the VMWare format is required.

This article describes a procedure for performing this conversion.

Open Virtualization Format

Open Virtualization Format (OVF, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Virtualization_Format) is an open standard for packaging and distributing virtual appliances or more generally software to be run in virtual machines.

DVDK is provided as an OVA (Open Virtualization Archive) file, which is a TAR file with the OVF directory inside (in particular, a .ovf file and the image of the virtual disk).

Open Virtualization Format Tool

VMware Open Virtualization Format Tool is a command line utility that supports importing and exporting of OVF packages. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

ovftool can be downloaded from the following link: http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/server/vsphere/automationtools/ovf?view=overview

ovftool documentation can be downloaded from http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/ovf/ovf301/ovftool-301-userguide.pdf

How to perform the conversion

1. Install ovftool
2. Uncompress the .ova archive provided with the development kit, obtaining a .ovf file and a .vmdk file (the virtual disk image). The .ovf file is a xml document that describes the packaged virtual machine: it contains the metadata for the OVF package, such as name, hardware requirements, references to the other files in the OVF package and human-readable descriptions.
3. Launch the following command:

   ovftool -tt=vmx <SourceLocationOfOVF> <DestinationLocationOfVMX>

This command will convert the .ovf file in a .vmx file, a format that VMWare can open. Ovftool will show all the errors that happen during the conversion process, allowing for correction of the .ovf file:

- manually, simply using a text editor - re-exporting the OVA from Virtualbox, after applying the proper modifications to the virtual machine

For example, an error arises during the process, caused by an unrecognized "hardware family":

~/work/naon/nelk-3.0.0 $ ovftool -tt=vmx NELK\ 3.0.0.ovf NELK-3.0.0.vmx
Opening OVF source: NELK 3.0.0.ovf
Opening VMX target: NELK-3.0.0.vmx
Error: OVF Package is not supported by target:
 - Line 37: Unsupported hardware family 'virtualbox-2.2'.
Warning:
 - No manifest file found.
Completed with errors

This error can be solved modifying the row in the xml file, changing from "virtualbox-2.2" to "vmx-06".

Please note that, by using the --lax option (please refer to the ovftool documentation) with the ovftool command, the compliance checks are relaxed, and the conversion process can be completed without fixing all the errors.

Once the conversion process is completed and the .vmx file is created, the virtual machine can be opened with VMWare (please see the image below, showing the DVDK running in VMWare Player 5.0.1).