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Billy ONeal
Asked: 2010-06-16 14:10:18 +0800 CST

Why does OVFTool hang randomly?

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Some great helpers here have shown me the VMWare OVF tool for template deployment. My problem is that the tool itself stops at the "Disk Transfer Completed" step half the time I use it. This seems to be random, and when it happens I have to terminate OVFTool and start the transfer over again. The second attempt usually succeeds.

Is there something I have broken on the server that might affect this? I'm using the free edition of ESXi 4.0.

Billy3

EDIT: This is how ovftool is being run:

@echo off
echo Enter the server from which to backup:
set /p Server=
echo Enter the path of the VM:
set /p VmPath=
echo Enter the username with which to login to Virtual Infrastructure:
set /p User=
echo Enter the password with which to login to Virtual Infrastructure:
set /p Password=
cls
cd "%programfiles(x86)%\vmware\vmware ovf tool"
mkdir "C:\vmbackup\%vmPath%"
ovftool.exe --acceptAllEulas --chunkSize=4480mb --diskMode=monolithicSparse "vi://%user%:%password%@%server%/%vmPath%" "C:\vmbackup\%vmPath%\%vmPath:\\=|%.ovf"
pause
vmware-esxi ovf

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I had this very problem. I never found a solution. What I did do, is install VMWare Converter, and it worked fine. I never found out what made OVFTool slow... It sucks if you want to script it (since AFAIK there isn't a command line version of converter)...

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  2. I use the ovftool all the time and have never noticed this sort of a problem, but I have noticed extreme slowness and the occasional failure when I'm deploying to or pulling from a slow network. What is the network situation like between the system you are running the tool from and the host? The other difference is that I use the ovftool from a linux host and not from a windows machine, is that something you can try to compare the difference?

    Some other things that you might check: When the ovftool is hanging, does it still have a network connection open? Is it using much RAM or CPU?

    EDIT: What version of the ovftool is it? What version of Windows are you running it from? Is it a direct connection, or are there routers/firewalls between you and the ESXi server? What version of ESXi is it?

    EDIT: I've now been afflicted by this problem. ESX 4.0, ovftool 1.0.0, never seen this before. Yep, it is annoying.

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  3. Appearently, the windows implementation fails - I started both and windows' version fails always at the same 7%. Linux' just works.

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