Creating Virtual machine with .OVF format

[Daniel P. Berrangé]

On Thu, Apr 08, 2021 at 05:51:54PM -0400, Ajay Kumar wrote:
> Hello members,
> 
> I would like to create virtual machine images with some pre-installed
> software in a .*OVF/OVA* format. So that I can use these* OVF *images/templates
> for any hypervisor to create a VM.

Big caveat: OVF/OVA only really ensures a portable packaging / description
format, and does /not/ actually provide hypervisor execution portability.

ie any hypervisor can have tools to consume an OVF/OVA, but that doesn't
mean the disk image inside can actually be run on any hypervisor.

Each hypervisor has its own set of virtual hardware that it emulates, and
there is little overlap between the different options (VMware, Hyperv, KVM).

eg if a disk image is built to use virtio-blk for its storage, then you can
run that on KVM, but not on VMware/HyperV. Likewise if you pick the HyperV
paravirtualized storage driver, then you're unlikely to have to easily run
on VMware/KVM.

If you work hard you might be able to create disk images that really
are portable across hypervisors by ensuring the OS can automagically
detect the drivers based on hardware it sees, but this is really
unrelated to any use of OVF/OVA.

Regards,
Daniel
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