You can deploy an airgap server VM directly to the VMware Telco Cloud Automation environment. But to make the airgap server VM deployable across multiple airgap environments, export the airgap VM to be a virtual appliance and upload it to a local file server. This section lists the steps to export the airgap server virtual appliance.
1. (Optional) Clear Docker cache and remove Docker cache disk.
root@photon-machine [ ~/airgap ]# scripts/bin/run.sh clear
2. Prepare tools and free disks.
Exporting a VM requires installation of VMware Open Virtualization Format Tool (VMware OVF Tool). This tool supports Windows, Linux, and Mac OS platforms. For steps to install VMware OVF Tool on your client where you export the airgap server virtual appliance before starting to export the VM, see https://developer.vmware.com/web/tool/4.4.0/ovf. For this example, we use the Linux platform. However, the command line options are the same for all the platforms.
3. Log in to vCenter Server.
- vCenter Server name: vcenter-airgap.example.com
- vCenter Server credentials: [email protected] / abcd1234
- Data center name: Datacenter
- Airgap server VM name: airgap-ova
4. Log in to the client desktop and export the OVA.
mkdir export-ova cd export-ova ovftool vi://[email protected]:'abcd1234'@vcenter-airgap.example.com/Datacenter/vm/airgap-ova ./airgap-ova.ova
5. Package the exported OVA into multiple blocks.
tar cvzf - airgap-ova.ova | split --bytes=1GB - airgap-ova.tar.gz.
6. Merge the blocks back to OVA.
cat airgap-ova.tar.gz.* | tar xzvf -
After merging the OVA, you can either import the OVA from the local datastore to vSphere, or upload it to the local NFS server, and import to create a new airgap server from it. If the import succeeds, you can safely delete the block files of .tar.gz.*.
7. (Optional) Import the OVA to vCenter Server using the VMware OVF Tool.
- vCenter Server name: vcenter-new.example.com
- vCenter Server credentials: [email protected] / ABCD5678
- Datacenter name: Datacenter-new
- Cluster name: airgap_cluster
- Datastore name: vsanDatastore
- Airgap server VM name: Import-airgap-ova
- Network name: VM Network
- VM folder: AIRGAP
ovftool --noSSLVerify --disableVerification --allowExtraConfig --X:enableHiddenProperties --X:injectOvfEnv --X:logFile=./airgapDeploy.log --X:logLevel=verbose --name="Import-airgap-ova" --datastore="vsanDatastore" --network="VM Network" --vmFolder="AIRGAP" --diskMode=thin "airgap-ova.ova" vi://[email protected]:'ABCD5678'@vcenter-new.example.com/Datacenter-new/host/airgap_cluster/