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Convert OVA Image to Supported Format

Problem

The OVA format is not supported by Platform9 Managed OpenStack's image catalogue.

OVA images may be converted into a supported format.

Environment

  • Platform9 Managed OpenStack - All Versions

Procedure

The OVA file is a TAR archive containing an OVF file, one or more disk image files, and optional manifest files.

Step 1: Extract the contents of the OVA file.

❯ ls
ubuntu-18.04-UOI-Physics-v1.2.ova

❯ file ubuntu-18.04-UOI-Physics-v1.2.ova
ubuntu-18.04-UOI-Physics-v1.2.ova: POSIX tar archive

❯ tar -xvf ubuntu-18.04-UOI-Physics-v1.2.ova
x ubuntu-18.04-UOI-Physics-v1.2.ovf
x ubuntu-18.04-UOI-Physics-v1.2-disk001.vmdk
x ubuntu-18.04-UOI-Physics-v1.2.mf

Step 2: Inspect the disk image file(s)

  • If multiple disks, identify which disk is to be used as an image.

  • Identify the disk image file format.

In this example, the disk image is .vmdk format.

The .vmdk format is supported by PMK on VMware vSphere hypervisors, but not KVM hypervisors. To work on KVM hypervisors, the .vmdk image file will need to be converted to QCOW2.

Step 3: Install qemu-img - QEMU disk image utility

The QEMU disk image utility, qemu-img, is required to convert the image format. If not already installed, install qemu-img on your workstation of choice.

Step 4: Convert the image format to QCOW2.

  • To verify supported formats, execute qemu-img -h | grep "Supported formats".

  • To ensure the image is recognized by PMO Glance, the .img extension will be used.

  • The newly created image may now be placed to PMO Glance host's Glance Images directory.

Additional Information

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