Uploading vShield Manager 5.0.1 to vCloud Director as a vApp Template

A quick post on how to enable the import of vShield Manager 5.0.1 OVA as a vApp Template into vCloud Director. This will allow you to spin up vCloud Director labs inside of vCloud Director for some crazy inception action.

Note: that this method can be used for other appliances.

As you know if you downloaded vShield Manager from VMware, the file format would be in OVA format, which is not compatible with vCloud Director.

This post goes through some of the steps required to

• Convert the OVA to OVF
• Edit the OVF to remove vCloud Director unsupported features (vmw:ExtraConfig)
• Create a new manifest file with the new SHA-1 hash

What you will need

1. VMware OVF Tool available to download here http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/virtualization-topics/virtual-appliances/ovf.
2. Notepad++ available to download here http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v5.9.8.html.
3. A SHA-1 generator available online here http://hash.online-convert.com/sha1-generator.

Converting OVA to OVF

Once you’ve downloaded the VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924.ova file, use the VMWare OVFTool to convert it to OVF format.

Open up the command prompt and run the following, assuming that the ova file is saved in C:\Users\Hugo Phan\Downloads\

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool>ovftool.exe “c:\users\Hugo Phan\Downloads\VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924.ova” “C:\Users\Hugo Phan\Downloads\VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924.ovf”

The following files will then be extracted within the directory

VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924.mf

VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924.ovf

VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924-disk1.vmdk

Editing the OVF file to be compatible with vCloud Director

If you now tried to use the current .ovf file to upload vShield Manager into VCD as a vApp Template, you will see the following error:

We need to remove the vmw:ExtraConfig elements from the .ovf file. To do this follow these instructions:

1. Open the VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924.ovf file in Notepad++ or your preferred text editor that does not add carriage returns.
2. Search for the three vmw:ExtraConfig lines and remove them from the file.

   

3. Save your file and exit Notepad++.
4. Now visit http://hash.online-convert.com/sha1-generator and upload the VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924.ovf file and click on the Calculate Hash button.

   

5. When you see the message You hash has been successfully created, copy the top lower case hex hash and open up the VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924.mf file in Notepad++

   

6. Replace the current hash for VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924.ovf with the new one.

   

7. Save the file.
8. Now you can successfully upload the new VMware-vShield-Manager-5.0.1-638924.ovf to vCloud Director without the error occurring.

   

Author: Hugo Phan

@hugophan View all posts by Hugo Phan