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Import a virtual machine to the public cloud
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Import a virtual machine to the public cloud

Through the VMware Cloud Director® dashboard, you can upload OS images (ISO) and virtual machine templates (.ova, .ovf) to content libraries. OS images and VM templates are stored in catalogs. You can share catalog data with other users or organizations within Cloud Director or publish for external organizations to access.

You can upload files to an existing directory or create a new one.

Virtual data centers in the SILVER-1 cluster have restrictions on importing your own ISO images of VMs. If you encounter problems with import , create a ticket and provide a link to the ISO image.

  1. Optional: create a directory.
  2. Load the virtual machine template into the catalog.
  3. Download the OS image.

1. Optional: create a directory⁠

  1. From the Control Panel, open the Cloud Director panel: from the top menu, click Products → VMware-based Cloud → Cloud Director.
  2. Open the virtual data center page.
  3. Open the Content Hub tab.
  4. Go to the Catalogs section.
  5. Click New.
  6. In the Name field, enter the name of the directory.
  7. Optional: in the Description field, enter a description of the catalog.
  8. Optional: To select a storage policy, enable the Pre-provision on specific storage policy toggle switch and select the policy.
  9. Click OK. The new directory appears in the list of available directories.

2. Download the virtual machine template⁠

  1. From the Control Panel, open the Cloud Director panel: from the top menu, click Products → VMware-based Cloud → Cloud Director.

  2. Open the virtual data center page.

  3. Open the Content Hub tab.

  4. Go to the Content section.

  5. Press ADD → OVA/OVF.

  6. In the Select Source step:

    6.1 Download the template:

    • enter the URL of the. ovf/.ova file in the URL field;
    • or in the Browse field, upload a file from your computer.

    6.2 Press Next.

  7. In the Select vApp Template Name step:

    7.1 Enter a name for the template in the Name field.

    7.2 Optionally: in the Description field, enter a description of the template.

    7.3. In the Catalog field, select the catalog where you want to load the template.

    7.4 Press Next.

  8. In the Ready to Complete step:

    8.1 Check the data.

    8.2 Click Finish. The download time depends on the size of the template you are downloading and the speed of your Internet connection. The new template will appear in Content Libraries → vApp Templates.

3. Download the OS image⁠

  1. From the Control Panel, open the Cloud Director panel: from the top menu, click Products → VMware-based Cloud → Cloud Director.
  2. Open the virtual data center page.
  3. Go to the Content section.
  4. Press ADD → Media.
  5. In the Catalog field, select the catalog where you want to download the image.
  6. In the Select media to upload field, select the ISO file to upload.
  7. Optional: in the Name field, change the name that was filled in automatically.
  8. Optional: in the Description field, enter a description of the image.
  9. Click OK. The download time depends on the size of the template you are downloading and the speed of your Internet connection. The new template appears in the list of available templates in the Content Libraries → Media & Other list.
  10. Optional: After installing the OS from the ISO, install the VMware Tools™ integration package.

Error when importing a template⁠

If the task ends in an error when you import a .ova VM template, you can fix it in Cloud Director or with the VMware vcd-cli utility.

  1. Unzip the OVA file with an archiver (e.g. tar, 7zip). The extracted folder will contain the VM template files in .ovf, .mf and .vmdk formats.
  2. Download the template. When you perform step 6 in the Select Source load all the files extracted by unpacking the archive. .ova.