Convert VMware Fusion VM to ESXi VM

Owned by Former user (Deleted)
Last updated: Nov 19, 2013Version comment

Prerequisites:

  • VMware OVF Tool and a VMware account (free) to download OVF tool.
  • Mac OSX System with Fusion and the VM’s you want to convert.
  • Free disk space

Procedure:

1. Download and install the VMware OVF Tool. http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/ovf/. Download is a .tar.gz file from vmware. 

2. Open terminal and extract the file

tar zxvf filename.tar.gz

3. Launch VMware OVF Tool.pkg file. You may be prompted by Gatekeeper that the package is not signed. Go ahead and change settings to allow unsigned packages installation

4. Create a folder where you want to save the converted VMs - in the example below, I have folder "Converted"

cd /Applications/VMware\ OVF\ Tool/

./ovftool /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/VirtualMachines/windows8.vmwarevm/windows8.vmx /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Converted/

5. You can now import the created OVF file into vSphere or a standalone ESXi server.

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