QEMU

Converting An Image

You can convert an image to other formats using qemu-img convert. Since I use QEMU as my main virtualization software, I’ll convert them to .qcow2 image.

.ova Image

Unpack the .ova image format.

$ tar -xvf input.ova

That should give extract two files: .vmdk and .ovf.

.vmdk needs to be converted into .qcow2 image format.

$ qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 input.vmdk output.qcow2

There are more necessary steps involved to make the images work like networking.

Explanations for the parameters.

-f: first image format
-O: output image format

See man qemu-img for more info.

Imported Obsidian Notes

Converting from different images

.ova

Unpack the .ova image format.

$ tar -xvf <image.ova>

That should give extract two files: .vmdk and .ovf. .vmdk needs to be converted into .qcow2 image format for QEMU to be able to read.

$ qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 <image.vmdk> <converted_image.qcow2>

There are more necessary steps involved to make it work inside the QEMU Virtual Machine.

Explanations for the parameters.

-f: first image format -O: output image format