Versions Compared

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

...

  1. Cloudstack allows single disk controller for all data disk. In case the OVA contains multiple data disk only one type of disk controller will be applicable for all of them.
  2. Cloudstack allows iscsi disks to be resized. Due to this limitation, if datadisk are ide for example, the resize to disk offering size will fail. And user will see actual disk sizes contained in OVA in the vCenter, not the ones selected by disk offerings.
  3. The disk controller specified in the OVA file could have a wide range of types and sub-types. Cloudstack has only limited types available. In case the disk controller is not supported by cloudstack, there can be boot issues with the VM. 
  4. If ISO is attached from CloudStack, it's not being picked up when exporting the VM. Therefore, in order to prepare proper template containing ISO, it must be attached from vSphere, connected, with the option to 'connect when power on' before being shut down.  

Limitations on OVA

There are some limitations on OVA template that Cloudstack will be able to handle. These limitations if found restricting can be further worked upon and removed.

...

  • The first disk is considered to be the boot disk, if it is an iso instead the VM creation will fail. If not it can result in boot issues.
  • All standard parmeters like size should be in there for all the vmdks and ISOs contained in OVA
  • An ovf file is considered to be in proper format and with valid information.
  • It is also assumed that the imported OVA file is compatible with vCenter
  • Multi-disk OVA file that bundles a single VM with multiple disks and an optional ISO
  • The disks should be bundled in the OVA with only relative paths in the OVF file (href attribute)
  • There will not be any empty disk in the OVF file, all disks will point to a valid File resource
  • Since Cloudstack treats each disk and iso file as separate unit, the specifications contained in InstallSection or StartupSections of OVF are ignored.
  • Cloudstack has its own mapping for operating systems and the information contained in OperatingSystemSection of OVF is ignored
  • The files are in uncompressed format, 'ovf:compression' attribute on File will be ignored
  • Files are not chunked and 'ovf:chunkSize' attribute is ignored
  • Any manifest and certificate files will be ignored
  • Disk format vmdk for data disk
  • Essentially we will only be looking at disk information in the ovf and other spec will be ignored
  • If there is a ISO in the ovf package then it will be mounted as CD-ROM
  • The network section is ignored and network is instrumented by Cloudstack.
  • There's no error handling in the UI when copying additional disks and ISOs, it has been observed that some templates appears as ready but are not deployable, due to a copy failure. The admin needs to monitor logs and check the template on storage when installed.