Converting a .ovf file to work on an older/different VMWare ESXi (maybe also player) setup

I will be using ESXi because that is what I have; I do not see why it would not work in Player or Workstation.

As you know, the way vmware likes to export/import vm guests is using a ovf format. So, let's say we are supposed to add a guest called strangeguest. We get it as a directory called strangeguest, which contains the disk (strangeguest-disk1.vmdk in our case), the config file strangeguest.ovf and a mysterious file called strangeguest.mf (.mf extension for Mysterious File?). When we try to import it we get an error message that complains we cannot import the OVF. A quick look indicates that strangeguest expects to be of SystemType vmx-12 or better:

admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$ fgrep vmx- strangeguest.ovf         vmx-12
admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$

Thing is our ESXi setup does not support vmx-12 guest in our ESXi as is a bit old and needs to be upgraded (which will be subject of another article). However, right now we need to make this work.

So we cheat.

We know the latest systemtype our ESXi support is vmx-10 by looking at the properties of the guests currently in place. So, how about if we tell strangeguest that it is vmx-10?

admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$ sed -i -e 's/vmx-12/vmx-10/' strangeguest.ovf
admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$ fgrep vmx- strangeguest.ovf         vmx-10
admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$

So we try again and we get a different error (note to myself: get that error message). What did we do wrong? Well, do you remember the mysterious file? Let's see what is inside it:

admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$ cat strangeguest.mf
SHA1(strangeguest.ovf)= 7b11b4aacead791f8aaf76e5ed3c2354349b3b20
SHA1(strangeguest-disk1.vmdk)= 9ccd4817ac2f943f7f29be970b76461850460d18
admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$

So it has the checksum (as SHA1, which is a step about MD5 but still not to be used as it can be lied to, but I digress). Remember we edited strangeguest.ovf!

admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$ sha1sum strangeguest.ovf
f14befc1e790b0043dd5f8e22fd8d601637997bd  strangeguest.ovf
admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$

So, we need to update strangeguest.mf:

sed: -e expression #1, char 83: unterminated `s' command
admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$ sed -i -e \
's/7b11b4aacead791f8aaf76e5ed3c2354349b3b20/f14befc1e790b0043dd5f8e22fd8d601637997bd/' \
strangeguest.mf
admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$ !cat
cat strangeguest.mf
SHA1(strangeguest.ovf)= f14befc1e790b0043dd5f8e22fd8d601637997bd
SHA1(strangeguest-disk1.vmdk)= 9ccd4817ac2f943f7f29be970b76461850460d18
admin@fileserver:/export/public/ISOs/strangeguest$

And we should be rewarded with strangeguest being properly imported.