[virt-tools-list] [Libguestfs] [libvirt] Usability Enhancement: Import/Export VMs GUI

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 03:23:07PM +0100, Martin Kletzander wrote:
> We're both talking about different things then.  virt-v2v is supposed to
> be able to import OVA image, that is extract all the stuff from it and
> feed it to libvirt.  Although I was only told that, I have no hands on
> experience with that.

The command:

  $ virt-v2v -i ova some.ova

will import `some.ova' into your current libvirt instance.

However, virt-v2v is really limited to a subset of source hypervisors
and guests.  If you're not on this list:

  http://libguestfs.org/virt-v2v.1.html#support-matrix

you're not getting in!

If your guest already runs on KVM (for example, it came from KVM
originally, and was just packaged up as an OVA by some deluded person
who thinks that OVA is a standard), you shouldn't be using virt-v2v at all.

> Totally different thing is importing only disk images.  virt-install and
> virt-manager can already do that and that's not the case for virt-v2v.

Right, virt-install --import is the way to go (or the equivalent
graphical commands in virt-manager).

Note that an OVA file is just a uncompressed tarball.  You can
extract the disk images from it by doing:

  $ tar xvvf some.ova

(That is, except for those OVAs which are not tarballs.  Some of them
are ZIP files.  Some of them are directories.  It's such a wonderful
standard!)

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
virt-p2v converts physical machines to virtual machines.  Boot with a
live CD or over the network (PXE) and turn machines into KVM guests.
http://libguestfs.org/virt-v2v