Tool PVE2OVA: Export OVA with Thin Provision Disk from a PVE Node

May 19, 2020
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Since I often work on VM conversions between platforms, migrating from ESXi to PVE has become quite straightforward. However, some clients are still using ESXi and need VMs to be migrated back to it.

That's why I created a small tool:
You can package a Proxmox VE virtual machine into an OVA file that can be imported by ESXi — and it can be done directly on the Proxmox VE node itself!

The key feature is automatic conversion of disks to Thin-Provision VMDK, supporting multiple storage back-ends such as RBD / dir / ZFS / LVM-thin.

JT_PVE2OVA (GitHub)

Supplement: Successfully tested on both VMware Workstation 17 and ESXi 8.0 — imported correctly without issues.

I use this handy tool to pre-build systems like Graylog and LibreNMS on my Proxmox VE, then package them into an OVA for clients still using ESXi to deploy. It saves a tremendous amount of time.



pve_vmdisk_zfs_to_ova.png
 
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Since I often work on VM conversions between platforms, migrating from ESXi to PVE has become quite straightforward. However, some clients are still using ESXi and need VMs to be migrated back to it.

That's why I created a small tool:
You can package a Proxmox VE virtual machine into an OVA file that can be imported by ESXi — and it can be done directly on the Proxmox VE node itself!

The key feature is automatic conversion of disks to Thin-Provision VMDK, supporting multiple storage back-ends such as RBD / dir / ZFS / LVM-thin.

JT_PVE2OVA (GitHub)

Supplement: Successfully tested on both VMware Workstation 17 and ESXi 8.0 — imported correctly without issues.

I use this handy tool to pre-build systems like Graylog and LibreNMS on my Proxmox VE, then package them into an OVA for clients still using ESXi to deploy. It saves a tremendous amount of time.



View attachment 86887

Hello! To import into VMWare, what should the controller look like? Every time I tried to export to import in VMWare it did not find the boot disks /dev/boot/dev/root.

1760705078177.png

Which controller type should be selected in VMWare ESXI after importing the OVA?

1760705117662.png