For more information on how to manage OVAs, refer to Manage OVAs.

OnApp OVA template store is used as a central repository to deploy templates into vCenter environments. These templates are stored on the OnApp CP server or backup server and are uploaded to vCenter during deployment via the OVA import procedure. OVA is an archive containing files from the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) package. OVF is an open-source standard for packaging and distributing software applications for virtual servers. 

The OVA import procedure involves the following steps:

  1. Uploading OVA to CP
  2. Converting OVA into a vCenter template
  3. Adding the template to the template store
  4. Building a virtual server from the template
  • The template OVF hardware version should be equal to or lower than the version of vCenter compute resource.
  • If the OVF template is exported from VirtualBox, the template hardware version should be changed from 'virtualbox-X' to 'vmx-X'.



Upload OVA


  1. Go to your Control Panel > Cloud > Templates menu on the left navigation panel.
  2. Click the OVA List link from the expanding menu. 
  3. On the page that loads, click the Upload OVA button at the bottom of the screen.
  4. Fill in the following details:
    • Label - enter a name for OVA

    • Backup server - select the backup server where OVA will be stored

      It is required to select a backup server where the OVA template should be stored. If the backup server is not selected, it will not be possible to upload an OVA.

    • Version - fill in the version of the OVA

    • Min memory size - specify the minimum required RAM for the OVA (128 MB by default). If you set the RAM value that is smaller than in the OVA file, this amount will be overwritten by the real memory size from the OVA file after upload. If you set the value that is bigger than the RAM in the OVA file, the settings will be applied.

  5. Click Next. On the page that appears, click the File or File URL tab depending on the upload method:
    • File - click Choose File to select the required OVA file from your file system. You will see the information on the maximum file size for OVAs. The maximum upload size is pre-configured at Admin > Settings > Configuration (the Max upload size field). Click the Upload OVA button.
    • File URL - select this tab if you want to upload OVA from URL and specify the link from which the OVA archive will be uploaded. 
  6. Click Save to upload the OVA archive. 

If an operating system of OVA is Linux and incremental backups are activated on your CP, you will not be able to upload the OVA file. To solve this issue, go to your Control Panel > Admin > Settings > Configuration > Backups/Templates tab and enable the Store extended attributes slider.

After you upload OVA to the cloud, it can be found at Cloud > Templates > OVA List > My OVAs tab. The OVAs uploaded by your users are under the User OVAs tab. You can convert the uploaded OVA into a vCenter-based template by following steps from the next section. 


Convert OVA


The initially-uploaded OVA file is saved without the attached virtualization so that you can convert it more than once into all supported virtualization formats. To convert the uploaded OVA archive into a vCenter-based template, follow the next steps: 

  1. Go to your Control Panel > Cloud > Templates menu from the left navigation pane.
  2. Click OVA List on the menu. 
  3. Click the Actions icon > Convert next to the required OVA file.

  4. In the open box, select the vCenter virtualization format and fill in the following details:

    • Label - enter a name for a new OVA file that will be created on the basis of the initially-uploaded one

    • Operating system - select the operating system of the OVA (Linux, Windows, or Other ). Choose the Other operating system if you want to upload an OVA with an operating system other than Windows or Linux.

    • Operating system distro - select the operating system distribution of the OVA from the drop-down list:
      • Ubuntu
      • RHEL
    • Architecture - select the architecture of the OVA (x86 or x64) 

    • Edition - select the edition of the OVA (for Windows-based OVAs only)

    • R2 - move the slider to the right if you want to use the updated release of Windows OS distribution (for Windows-based OVAs only)
    • Initial username - provide a username for the guest operating system
    • Initial password - provide a password for the guest operating system
    • Make public - move the slider to the right if you want to make the OVA available to all users in the cloud

  5. Click Save to convert OVA into the vCenter virtualization format.

    • The OVA file is locked for the time period while it is being converted. You can unlock the OVA file to make the following actions instantly available: edit OVA and delete OVA. To unlock OVA, click the Actions button and select the Unlock option.

    • The limits on the number of OVAs and disk space allocated for storing OVAs are bound to a user who uploaded an OVA file. Therefore, when the OVA file is being converted, the bucket limits are checked for the user who uploaded OVA and not for the user who converts it.

When the uploaded OVA file is converted into a template, you can proceed to add this template to the template store and then build a VS from this template.