OVF and OVA Limitations for the VMware Host Client

You can create a virtual machine in the VMware Host Client by using OVF and VMDK files, or OVA files. However, several limitations are applicable to this deployment method.

OVA Limitations

You can upload OVA files by using either a Web browser or a client. The memory requirements are significant and might cause the Web browser to stop responding or make the system unstable. The size of the OVA file that can be uploaded depends on how much memory is available on your system. VMware tests show that Google Chrome can upload OVA files of about 1 gigabyte. Mozilla Firefox can extract larger OVA files, but might become unresponsive.

To deploy a large OVA file, VMware recommends to first extract the OVA on your system by running the command tar -xvf <file.ova>. Then you can provide the deployment wizard with the OVF and VMDKs as separate files.

OVF Limitations

The size of OVF files that a Web browser can upload are also limited. Different Web browsers have different file size limits. Mozilla Firefox has a 4 GB limit. Google Chrome can handle larger files and there is no documented limit.