This is quick post to document an error I had when trying to import an OVA into my VMware Workstation 14.

Upon importing the virtual machine, I got the following message:

Invalid target disk adapter type: pvscsi.

I was able to get this to work after googling around and indirectly applying a tip from William Lam’s Blog, “Workarounds for deploying PhotonOS 2.0 on vSphere, Fusion & Workstation“.

The secret sauce was to use the “ovatool “, using it I was able to extract and convert the OVA to an OVF.

C:\Users\Wences Michel\Documents\vmw\vmc\t1>”C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\OVFTool\ovftool” –allowExtraConfig t1.ova t1.ovf
Opening OVA source: t1.ova
The manifest validates
Warning:
– Line -1: Unsupported value ‘vmware.tools.internalversion’ for attribute ‘key’ on element ‘ExtraConfig’.
– Line -1: Unsupported value ‘vmware.tools.requiredversion’ for attribute ‘key’ on element ‘ExtraConfig’.
Opening OVF target: t1.ovf
Writing OVF package: t1.ovf
Transfer Completed
Completed successfully

Then I was able to use my editor to search for “VirtualSCSI” and edit the OVF, changing a line in the file to reflect “lsilogic” instead.

Line Before Change:  <rasd:ResourceSubType>VirtualSCSI</rasd:ResourceSubType>

Line After Change: <rasd:ResourceSubType>lsilogic</rasd:ResourceSubType>

You will then need to delete the .mf file as original checksum has changed since you edited the file.  I then recreated the OVA and successfully imported the OVA.

C:\Users\Wences Michel\Documents\vmw\vmc\t1>”C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\OVFTool\ovftool” –allowExtraConfig t1.ova t1.ovf
Opening OVA source: t1.ova
The manifest validates
Warning:
– Line -1: Unsupported value ‘vmware.tools.internalversion’ for attribute ‘key’ on element ‘ExtraConfig’.
– Line -1: Unsupported value ‘vmware.tools.requiredversion’ for attribute ‘key’ on element ‘ExtraConfig’.
Opening OVF target: t1.ovf
Writing OVF package: t1.ovf
Transfer Completed
Completed successfully

I then opened VMware Workstation and opened the OVA and it imported with no issue.

This event FREE Member Event!

REGISTER HERE!

Meeting Event Highlights

• Featured Tech Talks:
  • Liquidware Labs
  • HVE ConneXions
  • Mobius Partners
  • VMware EUC CTO Brian Madden
• Lunch & Give Aways
• The Movie – Deadpool 2!

Thanks to our Event Sponsors!

What: Register for DFW VMUG #2 Event

When: Friday, May 18, 2018, 8:30 AM – 3:00 PM Central Time (US)

Where: Studio Movie Grill (SMG) – 10110 Technology Blvd W, Dallas, TX 75220

Right after the movie we will have our awesome vSocial from 3-7 pm right down the street at Humperdink’s North of SMG in the same center.

Also stay connected with your fellow VMUG members in person and/or via our online forums listed:

@DFWVMUG

Google Plus

LinkedIn

You asked for more technical content, deep dives and training and we got it for you here!

The DFW VMUG Leadership Team invites you to attend a half day morning meeting composing of 3 sessions running concurrently at the VMware offices:

• Orchestrator LAB – 35 people max
• Upgrading vSphere 5,6.0 -> 6.5 Whiteboard

• Overview of VMware Certifications 

Date:
April 25th 9:00 AM – 11:30 AM

Location:
1503 LBJ Parkway
Suite 700
Farmers Branch, TX 75234

***** REGISTER HERE!*****

Summary of program tracks:

Track 1 – vRealize Orchestrator Lab – Ingenuity Room

This educational session will take a hands on approach to vRealize orchestrator.  It will consist of a thirty minute overview of development in orchestrator followed by a one and a half hour guided lab.    The content has been developed by a VCDX-Cloud certified engineer to introduce infrastructure professionals to the world of site reliability engineering and automation.  Due to the limits of the lab this session has a maximum of 25 people per lab.   The instructor will be available post lab for questions and assistance with individual challenges.  Participants should bring their own laptop with Java preinstalled.

Track 2 – Upgrading to vSphere 6.5 whiteboarding – Fortitude Room

This session will focus on the architecture for vSphere 6.5 and whiteboarding upgrade paths it will be an interactive session to help individuals upgrade to 6.5.

Track 3 – Overview of VMware certifications and Q & A – Dignity Room

This session will focus on VMware certification paths.   Education experts will present on the topic and be available to answer questions.

You asked for it & we got it for you!
The DFW VMUG Q1 2018 Event!

What: Register for March 2018 DFW VMUG Q1 Meeting Event

When: Friday, March 23, 2018, 8:30 AM – 3:00 PM Central Time (US)

Where: Studio Movie Grill (SMG) – 10110 Technology Blvd W, Dallas, TX 75220

Meeting Highlights – Enjoy, Learn & Network with your industry peers!

• Speakers:
  • Ruduxio
  • Datrium
  • Trend Micro
• Lunch & Give Aways
• The Movie!
  • PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING 

Thanks to our Event Sponsors!

We’ll also have our usual awesome vSocial right down the street right after the movie at Humperdink’s North of SMG in the same center.

Join us for “DFW VMUG Q1 Meeting vBeers”

When:  Friday, March 23, 2018, 3:30 AM – 6:00 PM Central Time (US)

Where: Humperdinks Brewpub – 2208 W Northwest Hwy, Dallas, TX 75220

Thanks to our vBeers sponsor!

Come ask and answer questions about VMware, and get involved today!  

Let’s continue to work together to add value for all members and to continue to grow our DFW VMUG Community.

Please connect with your fellow VMUG members in person and/or via the online forums listed below on the twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn

@DFWVMUG

Google Plus

LinkedIn

Check out this cool blog post from VMware regarding learning NSX.  FREE electronic books to feed your mind and to start your journey to virtualizing your network and to help you start taking advantages of software defined networking.

If you do not know what VMware NSX is?  It is a virtual networking and security software product family developed by VMware and includes software from the Nicira acquisition, Network Virtualization Platform (NVP).

Software defined networking has many benefits including micro-segmentation as one key security benefit.  The following blog and library of books is a good start and are free for download HERE!

VMware NSX Day 1 Guide Library

Here is list of titles for the guides which are authored by VMware NSX Experts:

• Micro-segmentation: Day 1
• Micro-segmentation: Day 2
• Operationalizing NSX
• Automating NSX for vSphere with PowerNSX
• Building VMware NSX Powered Clouds and Data Centers for Small and Medium Businesses

Thank you to all those who attended!

The DFW VMUG Hackathon on 12/16/2017 was a great experience and if you missed it we hope to see you at one of our 2018 Hackathons.

Also if you want to try and run one for your community, keep reading and the the biggest thing to remember is, “Have Fun and just do it!”

Inspired by many and attending in person the Sept VMworld 2017 Hackathon was a great personal experience for me.  I am very grateful to William Lam & Alan Renouf for setting this up and thanks the VMware{code} Program for supporting the community and sponsoring the event  (Please reach out to current coordinator Elsa Meyer if you have questions regarding the VMware{code} program).

For the DFW VMUG it was “#Game On!” As soon as my friend and vBrownBag LATAM colleague Ariel Sanchez started blogging about it (VMworld Hackathon) and he then through down the gauntlet by kicking off the Pittsburgh #PGHLittleHack.

The DFW VMUG Hackathon was held in mid-December at the University of Texas at Dallas, and so I want to give a big shout out to and thank you to the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and John McConnell for hosting the event on the Richardson Campus.

Also big thanks and kudos to Ryan Clair (VMware/Sponsor) and Troy Lindsay (DFW VMUG Customer Member) for running the event with me, including serving as the team captains and resident Hackathon Experts.

Please see Troy Lindsay’s blog for more details and summary write up of the process, the event and lessons learned.  Also Ryan Clair’s GitHub for the project.

Remember, we cannot over emphasize, “having fun and experimenting!”

Running the DFW VMUG Hackathon was a great learning experience and we had a mixed crowd of geeks, experts and DevOps newbies. The planning and setup took a little over a month and guess what?  There are always challenges, which are just more opportunities to refine the process and shine.  We had to reschedule a couple times, lost our original hosting location.  Just as in role playing game like “Fall Out 4“, or a movie like “Star Wars: The Last Jedi“, Things happen, life goes on and we go on to live and fight another day.  The main thing is to have fun and make it fun for others while all the time learning.  To help you with your Hackathon if you do choose to run one, here are some things to ponder.

Top 10 Things To Consider:

1. Remember – #1 Have Fun!
2. Find couple passionate hackathon organizers, decide on venue and optionally get a sponsor for lab resources, venue and food.
3. Join the VMware{code} Slack Channel and start your journey today, then create your own channel — in our case it was dfw-hackathon
4. Spread the word to all potential participants/interested parties — we used our VMUG DFW Community page for communication and for registrations, and also leveraged our traditional DFW VMUG Social Media sites.
   @DFWVMUG
   Google Plus
   LinkedIn
   Facebook
5. Decide on best method for communications for both organizers and the newly forming Hackathon Community (slack, skype, texts, etc) and blogging. We did interactive publishing of all information we created using Google Doc. This was a living document and contained several iterations and was used to share all Hackathon Information.
6. Hold weekly planning meetings up until day of event, this helps keep you on track and helps mitigate issues as they arise.
7. Decide on which projects to work on and of interest to participants of your hackathon (we also sent out a couple  monkey surveys)
8. Do a dry run before event to ensure everything works (Internet Access, setting up Accounts, Accessing hackathon resources, power, power strips, etc)
9. Create Hackathon Project Team Slack sub-Channel on VMware{code} in our case it was #team-conductor and also create GitHub Repository for DFW Hackathon Project.
10. We were fortunate to have VMware sponsor this event so we had 3 hours of lab access to a couple VMware MyLearn Lab Machines already pre-configured, which saved us a lot of time and issues of setting up a lab on-site.

Note:  VMUG is always innovating and we are hoping to make available a VMUG Global Lab based on VMware Cloud on AWS for future VMUG Hackathons – Stay Tuned to VMUG News Letter Announcements.

The event was a very good first step in the right direction towards our DFW VMUG Community learning DevOps and we look forward to continuing our journey and hosting a couple more Hackathon Events in 2018.