Hi All, What is the correct way to provide a CentOS 7 - WMware image for ESX ? As an amateur to VMware - I thought - great I can get VMplayer and ESX should be able to import my image... Wrong... I even went through the trouble of "converting" to VMWare workstation and thinking ESX could import that - Apparently still Wrong... I cannot for the life of me understand how one product family is so incompatible with itself. But that is another story. I just want to be able to provide a pre-built image with CentOS 7 and my other programs on a bootable VMware image that is easily imported into any VMware platform - Workstation, ESX or other. How is that accomplished ? Thanks for your thoughts and experience. Jerry
In article <CABr8-B6fcNgogynq66nNMkSLCHAtqA4OrL09XY6ABPRV4H+ZQw at mail.gmail.com>, Jerry Geis <jerry.geis at gmail.com> wrote:> Hi All, > > What is the correct way to provide a CentOS 7 - WMware image for ESX ? > > As an amateur to VMware - I thought - great I can get VMplayer and ESX > should be able to import my image... Wrong... I even went through the > trouble of "converting" to VMWare workstation and thinking ESX could import > that - Apparently still Wrong... I cannot for the life of me understand > how one product family is so incompatible with itself. But that is another > story. > > I just want to be able to provide a pre-built image with CentOS 7 and my > other programs on a bootable VMware image that is easily imported into any > VMware platform - Workstation, ESX or other. > > How is that accomplished ? > Thanks for your thoughts and experience.Looking at the results for https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+to+export+a+vmware+image it looks like you need to export a built, working VM as an OVF. Not sure which VMware products can do that. Possibly Workstation? The old, free VMware server 1.0.10 that I use doesn't appear to have that feature. You should then be able to copy the OVF file to another VMware host an import it. Cheers Tony -- Tony Mountifield Work: tony at softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk Play: tony at mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org
On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 08:02:19PM +0000, Tony Mountifield wrote:> In article <CABr8-B6fcNgogynq66nNMkSLCHAtqA4OrL09XY6ABPRV4H+ZQw at mail.gmail.com>, > Jerry Geis <jerry.geis at gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi All, > > > > What is the correct way to provide a CentOS 7 - WMware image for ESX ? > > > > As an amateur to VMware - I thought - great I can get VMplayer and ESX > > should be able to import my image... Wrong... I even went through the > > trouble of "converting" to VMWare workstation and thinking ESX could import > > that - Apparently still Wrong... I cannot for the life of me understand > > how one product family is so incompatible with itself. But that is another > > story. > > > > I just want to be able to provide a pre-built image with CentOS 7 and my > > other programs on a bootable VMware image that is easily imported into any > > VMware platform - Workstation, ESX or other. > > > > How is that accomplished ? > > Thanks for your thoughts and experience. > > Looking at the results for https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+to+export+a+vmware+image > it looks like you need to export a built, working VM as an OVF. > > Not sure which VMware products can do that. Possibly Workstation? The old, free > VMware server 1.0.10 that I use doesn't appear to have that feature. > > You should then be able to copy the OVF file to another VMware host an import it. > > Cheers > TonyOr,if push comes to shove, you can rebuild it in VirtualBox and do an export to OVF from there. It might be possible to import the existing VM into VirtualBox, and if so it MIGHT let you do an OVF export. no guarantees, I've not tried doing that particular thing. Good luck! Fred -- ---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us ----------------------------- God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." --------------------------- Corinthians 5:21 ---------------------------------
On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 1:27 PM Jerry Geis <jerry.geis at gmail.com> wrote:> What is the correct way to provide a CentOS 7 - WMware image for ESX ?You are probably looking for VMware Converter which can p2v or v2v. IMO: if you are creating a VM image which is a binary blob or image then you are doing it wrong. Have the VM/server/desktop be a simple next/next/next install and the incorporate a config management tool (puppet/ansible/etc) to make it the way you like it. VM-as-code if you will. This results in a reproducible thing instead of an unmanageable thing.>
>> What is the correct way to provide a CentOS 7 - WMware image for ESX ? > > You are probably looking for VMware Converter which can p2v or v2v. > > IMO: if you are creating a VM image which is a binary blob or image then > you are doing it wrong. Have the VM/server/desktop be a simple > next/next/next install and the incorporate a config management tool > (puppet/ansible/etc) to make it the way you like it. VM-as-code if you > will. This results in a reproducible thing instead of an unmanageable thing.I'm doing this sort of thing, and frankly, VMware Converter would be my last choice. One project uses packer, the other, a combination of shell scripts, genisoimage, and Virtualbox's vboxmanage.? Both projects build a VM and export it to an OVA.? Example usage, these are great for creating new VMs from the CentOS rolling ISOs. As for getting the OVA into vSphere's inventory, I'm using Powershell (Ansible's VMware support wasn't so great when I was working on the projects). Jack
> -----Original Message----- > From: CentOS <centos-bounces at centos.org> On Behalf Of Steven Tardy > Sent: den 25 april 2018 02:26 > To: CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> > Subject: Re: [CentOS] Vmware - Slightly off topic > > On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 1:27 PM Jerry Geis <jerry.geis at gmail.com> wrote: > > > What is the correct way to provide a CentOS 7 - WMware image for ESX ? > > > You are probably looking for VMware Converter which can p2v or v2v.The converter you mention only runs on Windows, right? Or has there been releases that now works with linux flavours as well? -- //Sorin
On 04/24/2018 01:26 PM, Jerry Geis wrote:> What is the correct way to provide a CentOS 7 - WMware image for ESX ? > ... > > I just want to be able to provide a pre-built image with CentOS 7 and my > other programs on a bootable VMware image that is easily imported into any > VMware platform - Workstation, ESX or other. > > How is that accomplished ? > Thanks for your thoughts and experience.While my experience with ESX is rather old at this point, as is my experience with Workstation, since I have converted to KVM for my virtualization here, I will just point out that the virtual hardware supported by ESX(i) and Workstation are not the same.? I don't know if current vSphere/ESXi is different, but it's easy enough to check, but older ESX only supported SCSI for the virtual hard disks; no IDE hard disk support in ESX, and Workstation defaults to IDE hard disks.? VMware Workstation and ESXi are very different products, or at least the last versions of each that I actively used were.? So check which ESXi version you're targeting, and make sure you install the guest in Workstation with that hardware version and with ESXi-compatible devices. And then there is VMware Fusion for macOS....
Packer FTW On Tuesday, 24 April 2018, Jerry Geis <jerry.geis at gmail.com> wrote:> Hi All, > > What is the correct way to provide a CentOS 7 - WMware image for ESX ? > > As an amateur to VMware - I thought - great I can get VMplayer and ESX > should be able to import my image... Wrong... I even went through the > trouble of "converting" to VMWare workstation and thinking ESX could import > that - Apparently still Wrong... I cannot for the life of me understand > how one product family is so incompatible with itself. But that is another > story. > > I just want to be able to provide a pre-built image with CentOS 7 and my > other programs on a bootable VMware image that is easily imported into any > VMware platform - Workstation, ESX or other. > > How is that accomplished ? > Thanks for your thoughts and experience. > > Jerry > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >