Open Virtualization Format (OVF)

[Nodefield]

Open Virtualization Format (OVF) is an open standard for packaging and distributing virtual appliances.

It would be nice if Proxmox VE would offer a built-in utility for importing OVF packaged virtual machines.

Many OSS and commercial appliances are distributed in OVF format. Right now importing them to Proxmox VE is a manual process requiring decompression and conversion of files inside OVF package. All required tools are already shipped with PVE node, so automating this process shouldn't require huge effort.

OVF is open and standardized format:

• ANSI has ratified OVF 1.1.0 as ANSI standard INCITS 469-2010.
• OVF 1.1 was adopted as an International Standard in August 2011 by the Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)

 

[ciampix]

IMVHO good suggestion... but to quote an old post: "The OVF file is simply a description of the virtual machine. You must have some vmdk file hanging around somewhere open the OVF file in a text editor and find the name and path of the vmdk file. When you have found this vmdk file converting is easy: qemu-img convert -O raw file.raw" So could be different image format to convert from...

 

[Nodefield]

Yes,

.ovf file is simply a description of virtual machine, but there is also .ova which is an archive format used for delivering both the disk images and .ovf description.

One example of open source project offering an OVA packaged virtual appliance is Graylog.

Currently using OVA appliances requires manual process with tools already found within Proxmox VE.

My suggestion - and feature request - is an automatic import tool for OVF .ova packages.