VMware VM deploy

On our blade servers, we use ESXi version 6.0. The hardware is not compatible with newer versions.

Deploy a virtual machine - version 11 or lower

If you have a compatible .ova or .vmx compatible with ESXi 6.0, ie. verison 11 or below, you can use ovftool to deploy. It makes the process simple, and might be automated.

Install ovftool from vmware

As of this writing, we use version 4.3.0
Run ovftool --name=remote-name --network=some-net vm-test.vmx vi://root@esxi-host

Replace
- remote-name: the name you want for the VM on the ESXi.
- some-net: the name of the network to connect the network interface to.
- vm-test.vmx: the filename of the VM to copy. This might be a .ova file.
- root: unless you do it properly and have user management on the ESXi, your user is called root.
- esxi-host: the name of the esxi host. This may be the ip address.
Go to the ESXi server and start the machine and do customization.

There are tools for manipulating virtual machine “harddisk” without starting them. You could use that to set e.g. passwords and IPs before moving them to the remote server.

Deploy a virtual machine - version 11 or lower

This is the scenario where you have created the VM in VMware workstation, and default was a newer version than 11.

VMware workstation has a function for converting the VMs. It is located under Manage -> Change compatibiklity settings..... In the wizard, choose workstation 11.x

After conversion, you can follow the deployment described above.

Ovftool bonus

To create an .ova file from .vmx, do

ovftool <somedir>/myvm/myvm.vmx myvm.ova

You may find the path to the .vmx file in the vmware workstaion under Virtual machine detail or right-click in the library and choose Open VM directory