Installing VMware ovftool on Mac OS X Posted on Sun 08 January 2012 in Mac VMware offers a free tool to convert virtual machine files in different formats for example from.vmx to.ovf.
Recently I have published a post about the difficulties and available hints on installing Lion on VMware as a virtual machine. Here is the great news: I managed to install on my Windows 7 32Bit OS with VMware. This guide is part of the full complete guide which I will be publishing in coming days.The available Lion installation DMG is not working with VMware on non apple computer. We need to create a bootable installer image which can be used as a boot loader and installation medium to complete our task. Here I show how to create a bootable Lion OS X Installer Image for VMware in Windows host.
I’m demonstrating these steps in Intel Core2duo computer with 3GB RAM with Windows 7 32Bit computer and VMware workstation 7.1.
What You Need?
1) Working Snow Leopard Virtual Machine in VMware or VirtualBox
Check my earlier guides to install Snow Leopard on VMware or on VirtualBox
2) Lion Leopard Installation DMG (Available for developers in Apple site and some torrents sites). You can use the original retail DVD after the final release.
Why You Need This Installer Image?
1) There are no boot loaders available to boot the original Lion installer in VMware.
2) The installation package available in DMG file can’t be installed in virtualization platform.
Steps to Follow.
1) Attach a 5GB new virtual hard disk (VMDK) file to working Snow leopard Virtual machine.
2) Press Initialize when you start the Mac OS X virtual machine. Create a partition with following configuration in newly attached 5GB virtual hard disk.
- Name – LionInstaller
- Format: Mac OS X Extended
- Partitions: Single partition – Apple Partition Map
3) Now attach the Lion Installation DMG or ISO you downloaded from Apple or Torrent sites to VMware virtual machine’s CD drive. Once you connect, it will be automatically mounted in SL virtual machine.
Convert DMG file to ISO in Windows host as shown here. The file is mounted as “Mac OS X Install ESD” under Volumes.
4) We need to copy the base system image from mounted ISO to our LionInstaller (new VMDK file). Mount the base system image from terminal and run the following command.
This will mount it as “Mac OS X Base System” in desktop and under Volumes.
5) After Base System mounted, we can use Restore feature under disk utility to copy the entire data.
Go to Disk Utilities and select the source and destination as shown below to start the restore – this will copy the entire base system to 5GB hard disk.
Provide the root access password.
6) Copy the kernelcache files with following command.
7) Modify the plist file to enable the kernelcahce we copied in new installer disk.
Go to /Volumes/LionInstaller/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ and open com.apple.Boot.plist file with TextEdit.
Enter following string and save the file.
If you face any permission issues, save this file to Desktop or any other folder then move to the destination, this time it will ask to authenticate, provide root access password.
OR, use sudo vi command to modify this file in terminal.
Make sure this file is modified as shown in above example in new installer image.
8.) Now copy the installation packages by following commands.
Second command will copy large size of data to new VMDK file. Wait for some time.
9) We are almost done. Since VMware supports Mac OS X server versions only, newly created installation image should be flagged as server version.
Run the following command.
That’s it, our bootable Lion installer image is ready and it can boot in VMware without any boot loaders. Shutdown the running Snow Leopard virtual machine and remove the 5GB VMDK file from virtual machine. This VMDK file can be attached to other new Lion VM to boot and install.
I successfully managed to install Lion OS X 10.7 on my VMware workstation 7.1 in Windows 7 Intel host computer with this image.
I will be sharing the complete installation steps in coming days. Stay tuned with Sysprobs.
This guide is based on other guide published in obviouslogic.com, where he created installer image on Mac host computer and used the same image in VMware Fusion. Big thanks for obviouslogic.com owner for excellent idea which can be used in Virtual machine and Windows VMware also.
I was really excited to see that JAMF released a new Ubuntu-based VM that hosts Reposado and diskless NetBoot today. I was less excited to see that the VM was in VirtualBox’s Open Virtual Appliance format. Nothing against VirtualBox, but I’ve already got VMWare installed and prefer to use that instead.
Fortunately, it is possible to convert from .ova to .vmdk pretty easily using VMWare’s OVF Tool. See below the jump for how you can convert the file and use it in VMWare Fusion.
1. Download and install the VMWare OVF Tool for Mac OS X from this site: http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/server/vsphere/automationtools/ovf
2. Open Terminal and run the following command (fill in paths as appropriate):
/Applications/VMware OVF Tool/ovftool /path/to/NetSUS_1.0.ova /path/to/NetSUS_1.0.vmx
You should see output like this:
hostname:~ username$ /Applications/VMware OVF Tool/ovftool /path/to/NetSUS_1.0.ova /path/to/NetSUS_1.0.vmx
Opening OVA source: /path/to/NetSUS_1.0.ova
Opening VMX target: /path/to/NetSUS_1.0.vmx
Writing VMX file: /path/to/NetSUS_1.0.vmx
Disk Transfer Completed
The manifest validates
Completed successfully
hostname:~ username$
Os X Vmware Image
Once the conversion finishes, you should have two files.
3. Next, open VMWare Fusion and have it set up a new VM. When prompted, choose Continue without disc.
4. Select the Use an existing virtual disk: option and select the NetSUS_1.0.vmdk file. I chose to make a separate copy of the virtual disk for my new VM.
Mac Os For Vmware Workstation
5. The .vmdk format is seen by VMWare Fusion 4.x as an older format, so I chose to convert it for maximum compatibility.
6. Once the NetSUS_1.0.vmdk file was converted, I was taken back to the Virtual Machine Assistant. I hit Continue at this point.
7. VMWare correctly identified it as a Linux VM running Ubuntu, so I left these selections alone and hit Continue.
8. Final step in the creation process. I was fine with the default options, so I hit the Finish button.
Success!