Export OVF from VMware Player

Get OVF Tool: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=OVFTOOL350&productId=352

From CLI (windows for me, but should be same on other platforms):

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool\> ovftool "C:\Users\Sam\Documents\Virtual Machines\VmDemo\VmDemo.vmx" C:\Users\Sam\Desktop\VmDemo.ovf

Opening VMX source: C:\Users\Sam\Documents\Virtual Machines\VmDemo\VmDemo.vmx
Opening OVF target: C:\Users\Sam\Desktop\VmDemo.ovf
Writing OVF package: C:\Users\Sam\Desktop\VmDemo.ovf
Transfer Completed
Completed successfully

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool> _

Export virtual machine from ESX server to OVF file

Previously I have posted an article on how to upload an OVA file to an VMware ESX server.  I recently had a task doing the opposite.  Here is an example using ovftool to download a vm from ESX server and creating portable OVF to deploy on another VMware server.

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool>ovftool --noImageFiles "vi://root:password@esxHostname/ha-datacenter?ds=[datastore1] JBOSS 5.0.1.GA/JBOSS 5.0.1.GA.vmx" C:\Users\Charles\Desktop\l1-server.ovf

I have underlined above what you will need to change for your environment.  You can determine where your .vmx file is by looking at the disk settings for your VM in vSphere:

Deploy VMware OVA to Remote ESX

Often my customer site provides us with VMs that contain the framework which replicates their environment.  The big issue we have is that with only 8GB of RAM on the older corporate issued development laptops floating around, a VM that needs 6GB to run doesnt leave much space for jboss, eclipse and gwt developer. (And the usual Pandora, Outlook and Instant message client).

A work around I discovered is to deploy these virtual machines to a dedicated server running VMware ESX.

Traditionally I would upload an ISO to the datastore, create a VM configuration.  Mount the ISO, install the OS and configure the network settings manually.

If you already have a VM configured to use DHCP, then its a breeze with the ovftool offered by VMware.

The command is as follows:

ovftool -ds=datastore1 -nw="VM Network" -st=OVA C:\Users\Charles\Downloads\GM_Dev_Local-OWF6.ova vi://root:[password]@[host]

After 100%

That's it!