$ tar -tf WinDev2001Eval.ova
WinDev2001Eval.ovf
WinDev2001Eval-disk001.vmdk
WinDev2001Eval.mf
So inside the ova file includes
- A virtual machine specification definition .ovf file
- A hash checksum .mf file
- A disk image in .vmdk image
1. Convert .vmdk to .img
$ qemu-img convert -O raw WinDev2001Eval-disk001.vmdk WinDev2001Eval.img
2. Convert .vmdk to .qcow2
$ qemu-img convert -O qcow2 WinDev2001Eval-disk001.vmdk WinDev2001Eval.qcow2
All supported formats can be confirmed by qemu-img -h
The converted qcow2 image could be used to create a new virtual machine using virt-manager.
I used to think that .ova file is the file format of Virtual Box (There are also many articles on the internet instruct you to install Virtual Box on Linux to open .ova file!). Actually, by simple conversion, we can run .ova packaging image on default simple performant Linux KVM. The OVF was originated from 2007 and it has been more than a decade from its creation, yet I am still amazed at how little I know about it.