ovftool

I had recently come across the need to deploy an OVA file remotely and didn’t want to have to upload the file over VPN to the destination vCenter, the solution is to install OVFTool ↗ on a server that has local access to the vCenter and deploy it using the following syntax: ovftool.exe --acceptAllEulas -ds="[DATASTORE NAME HERE]" --net:"NAME OF OVA NETWORK"="NAME OF PORT GROUP" --prop:[PROPNAME]=[Value] \path\to\appliance.ova vi://vcsa.domain.com/DatacenterName/host/ClusterName The easiest way to get a list of objects you must reference for --net and --prop values is by running (in this example I am testing a vSphere Data Protection 5....

It’s sometimes necessary (say you’ve been working on a VM on your local workstation in either VMWare Fusion, or VMWare Workstation) to move the VM you’ve been playing with to an ESXi instance to either move into development or to have it properly backed up etc. The easiest way I find to do this is create a .ova file from the VM i’ve been working on. First install the VMWare OVATool found here on whatever flavour your OS is (sign in required): https://my....