Add support for running ovftool directly on ESXi

[dizzyd]

This PR adds support for invoking ovftool directly on the ESXi host and also enabling ESXi-local hosting of OVA/OVFs. This enables users to keep local copies of images, avoid massive network copies and generally speed up the process of setting up new VMs.

[djdanielsson]

This seems like a really useful option, +1

[oussexist]

How to Do that man , there are only win and linux files meanwhile esxi is not linux , tho you do it with host client ? i dont found any console or sth to some cmds , am a beginner..

[josenk]

Installing ovftool on the ESXi host doesn't seem to be a supported solution from vmware website...

[djdanielsson]

no it isn't supported, but really using this at all is unsupported so why not give this as an option at least? But I agree it would be nice to have clear instructions on how to do this if this is going to be an option.

[djdanielsson]

@dizzyd can you write up or link to instructions on how to install the ovftool on ESXi itself?

[dizzyd]

ESXi is just a 64-bit Linux; you can download the ovftool for Linux 64-bit and unpack on the ESXi box (typically via SSH). @djdanielsson and @oussexist

[mitch40]

@dizzyd Whoo nice work, i'm trying to test this feature!

• I've unziped ovftool on my esxi (and symlinked ovftool in /bin),
• I've git clone the original repo and you PR
• I've compilled the project
• I've seen your example (examples/08 ovftool on ESXi)
• I've removed .terraform* from my lab project

But… where am i supposed to drop the binary file?

Thank you !

[dizzyd]

But… where am i supposed to drop the binary file?

I'm not sure what binary you're referring to? If you've already installed ovftool on ESXi, the rest of this patch should just be part of a normal terraform plugin, IIRC. It's been 2+ years since I made this patch, so hard to say -- I guess it wasn't interesting to the maintainers... :)