1166 - How to use VMware's command-line OVF Tool

It's possible to do a Full System Restore in OVF format with VMDKs, but this disk format is not supported by VMware’s vSphere client. Instead, VMWare’s command-line OVF Tool can be used to deploy the OVF package.

For example, the following command will deploy the OVF at D:\ovfrestore\ovf.ovf (the disk files will be located in the same folder as the OVF file):

ovftool -ds=Datastore1 D:\ovfrestore\ovf.ovf vi://username:password@123.123.123.123/Datacenter1/Cluster1/Host1

This command specifies the following parameters:

• Connect to a VMware hypervisor at ‘123.123.123.123’ using the credentials ‘username’ and ‘password’.
• Store the VM data files in datastore ‘Datastore1’.
• Deploy the VM to ‘Host1’ in cluster ‘Cluster1’ in datacenter ‘Datacenter1’.

Dcumentation for the OVF tool can be found here.