[TUTORIAL] Tip for unzipping .ova files in Proxmox

Y0nderBoi

Member
Sep 23, 2019
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Hello all,

Not sure if this is allowed or not. If not, mods feel free to nuke this. If it is allowed I am hoping that I can save some poor sap like me a few minutes (hours) of trying to figure out why I could not get my .ova file to be unzipped.

Here are some of the guides I used to get a general feel for the process:
Guide 1
Guide 2
Guide 3

All of the guides had me stuck on unzipping the file.

For context, I am attempting to install the GNS3 VM via a .ova file on my Proxmox server. I had found a number of guides going over uploading it. I used scp to dump it to the /var/lib/vz/iso directory, but you could use whatever you prefer.

Once it was uploaded I could not for the life of me get tar to unzip my .ova. The solution I found that works is run the following:
tar xvf 'GNS3 VM.ova' for whatever reason anytime I tried added other parameters to the tar command it would not work. I am sure this will also work with other .ova files just replace it with the name of your .ova like so:
tar xvf 'NAME_OF_YOUR_OVA.ova'

From there the .ova file was broken up into the appropriate files and I was able to finish the import without issue.
 
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Is this a question / ask for help or do you want to share your experience (which is appreciated)? I'm a little unsure...

In the second case please consider to mark your thread as "tutorial" by editing the first post and select that option from the dropdown list nearby the title ;)
 
Is this a question / ask for help or do you want to share your experience (which is appreciated)? I'm a little unsure...

In the second case please consider to mark your thread as "tutorial" by editing the first post and select that option from the dropdown list nearby the title ;)
Added the the tag. Thanks for the heads up!
 

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