Uncompress a VMWARE OVA and modify its VM version

Introduction :

This post shows how to adapt a VMWARE OVA for a Virtual Machine with VM8 format to a VM7 format compatible with ESXi4.

When you try to open an OVA with the format vmx-08 on an ESXi 4.1 you get the following error :

 ”The OVF package requires unsupported hardware
Details: Line 25: Unsupported hardware family ‘vmx-08′.”

Uncompresse OVA Archive :

First off all uncompress the OVA archive (with a zip extractor like 7-ZIP)

You will get a directory with 3 files on it like this :

10.20.8.48 _ CentOS6_64b_PostGre_Designed.mf
10.20.8.48 _ CentOS6_64b_PostGre_Designed.ovf
10.20.8.48___CentOS6_64b_PostGre_Designed-disk1.vmdk

Modify the OVF file :

Open the *.ovf file

Change the following line :

 <vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-08</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

By this one :

 <vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-07</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

Modify the *.mf file and calculate the SHA1 hash of the modified OVF file :
Open the *.mf file which contains the SHA1 hash of *.ovf file. So you need to replace the value specified by the new SHA1 hash of .ovf file.

SHA1(10.20.8.48 _ Kurmi_64b_PostGre_Designed.ovf)= 48432f9cb8b0bfa97098006abb390805449303be
SHA1(10.20.8.48___Kurmi_64b_PostGre_Designed-disk1.vmdk)= ffa3500bc379a2e040badce315d6b3b06876d5a9

To calculate this hash you can use a tool like FCIV from microsoft. You can download it there : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841290

>D:\FCIV\fciv.exe -sha1 "10.20.8.48 _ Centos6_64b_PostGre_Designed.ovf"
//
// File Checksum Integrity Verifier version 2.05.
//
a5dfa395e40861199582e8a66b1c36f58b27b7bf 10.20.8.48 _ Centos6_64b_postgre_designed.ovf

So, put the new hash in the *.mf file and save it

SHA1(10.20.8.48 _ Kurmi_64b_PostGre_Designed.ovf)= a5dfa395e40861199582e8a66b1c36f58b27b7bf
SHA1(10.20.8.48___Kurmi_64b_PostGre_Designed-disk1.vmdk)= ffa3500bc379a2e040badce315d6b3b06876d5a9

Deploy the new OVF :

Now, you can deploy directly the new OVF file on ESXi 4.1.
On VSPHERE select :

File > Deploy OVF Template
Select your OVF file :

The following WARNINGS are raised but you can move forward.

So now you can deploy and start your VM.