I was attempting to deploy a VM as a vCloud template into a vCloud Director instance using ovftool and ran into an interesting problem. I could successfully deploy a VM, but I could not create a vCloud template using ovftool even though the documentation stated this was possible. What was going on?
The Command
I was running a command similar to the following:
ovftool --acceptAllEulas --overwrite \
"https://sflanders.net/files/VMware-vCenter-Log-Insight-1.5.0.ova" \
"vcloud://steve:@vcd.sflanders.net/cloud?org=SFlanders&vdc=Steve&catalog=VMs&vappTemplate=loginsight15"
The result was a new VM being deployed into the Steve VDC, but no catalog VM being created.
The Documentation
While reviewing the OVF Tool documentation, I discovered the –vCloudTemplate flag, which states will create only a vAppTemplate. Specifying this flag had no impact.
The Issue
The problem turned out to be with the –overwrite flag. I had specified the –overwrite flag as I was attempting to deploy the same name VM multiple times and I do not want to go cleanup after each attempt. With the –overwrite flag specified, no vAppTemplate can be created. By removing the flag everything worked as expected.
ovftool --acceptAllEulas --vCloudTemplate \
"https://sflanders.net/files/VMware-vCenter-Log-Insight-1.5.0.ova" \
"vcloud://steve:@vcd.sflanders.net/cloud?org=SFlanders&vdc=Steve&catalog=VMs&vappTemplate=loginsight15"
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