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Import a virtual machine to the public cloud

Using the VMware Cloud Director® panel, 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 it for access by external organizations.

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

In virtual data centers in the SILVER-1 cluster, there are restrictions on importing custom VM ISO images. If you encounter any problems importing, submit a ticket and provide a link to the ISO image.

  1. Optional: create a catalog.
  2. Upload a virtual machine template to the catalog.
  3. Upload an OS image.

1. Optional: create a catalog

  1. From the control panel, open the Cloud Director panel: in the top menu, click Products → Cloud powered by VMware → 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 catalog name.
  7. Optional: in the Description field, enter a description for the catalog.
  8. Optional: to select a storage policy, turn on the Pre-provision on specific storage policy toggle and select the policy.
  9. Click OK. The new catalog will appear in the list of available catalogs.

2. Upload a virtual machine template

  1. From the control panel, open the Cloud Director panel: in the top menu, click Products → Cloud powered by VMware → Cloud Director.

  2. Open the virtual data center page.

  3. Open the Content Hub tab.

  4. Go to the Content section.

  5. Click ADD → OVA/OVF.

  6. At the Select Source step:

    6.1. Upload the template:

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

    6.2. Click Next.

  7. At the Select vApp Template Name step:

    7.1. In the Name field, enter the template name.

    7.2. Optional: in the Description field, enter a description for the template.

    7.3. In the Catalog field, select the catalog to upload the template to.

    7.4. Click Next.

  8. At the Ready to Complete step:

    8.1. Check the data.

    8.2. Click Finish. The upload time depends on the size of the template being uploaded and the internet connection speed. The new template will appear in the Content Libraries → vApp Templates section.

3. Upload an OS image

  1. From the control panel, open the Cloud Director panel: in the top menu, click Products → Cloud powered by VMware → Cloud Director.
  2. Open the virtual data center page.
  3. Go to the Content section.
  4. Click ADD → Media.
  5. In the Catalog field, select the catalog to upload the image to.
  6. In the Select media to upload field, select the ISO file to upload.
  7. Optional: in the Name field, change the automatically populated name.
  8. Optional: in the Description field, enter a description for the image.
  9. Click OK. The upload time depends on the size of the template being uploaded and the internet connection speed. The new template will appear in the list of available templates in Content Libraries → Media & Other.
  10. Optional: after installing the OS from the ISO, install the VMware Tools™ integration package.

Error when importing a template

If the VM template import in .ova format fails with an error, it can be fixed in Cloud Director or using the VMware vcd-cli utility.

  1. Extract the OVA file with an archiver (for example, tar, 7zip). The extracted folder will contain VM template files in .ovf, .mf, and .vmdk formats.
  2. Upload the template. When performing step 6, in the Select Source section, upload all files extracted from the .ova archive.