fault.ovfMissingElement.Summary when deploying to eSXi 5.1

[christoph...@gmail.com]

Hi All,

We have attempted to deploy this vApp to an ESXi 5.1 virtual host, managed by vCenter, and got the error message in the post title. I appear to have been successful in working around this and wanted to share the steps for anyone else encountering this.

1. First we needed a copy of VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0.1 . I happened to have the installer hanging about on a NAS, but there are a few sites hosting it, employ your google-fu. I tried the latest version originally - it unfortunately seems not to support .ovf templates.
2. Once the converter is installed, run the client and choose Convert Machine.
3. Select Source Type: Virtual Appliance and browse to the .ovf file. Click Next.
   
4. Select Destination Type: VMware Infrastructure Virtual Machine and enter the credentials for your vCenter server (I assume that if you don't have vCenter you could just use the host IP here). Click Next.
5. The vCenter (/vHost) inventory is shown - select the location, datastore and name for your appliance. I used Version 9 for Virtual Machine version and that appeared to work, I suppose you'll need to decide for yourself which version you use based on which version of ESX/ESXi you have. Click Next.
   
6. On the View/Edit Options step I had a warning icon next to 'Advanced Options' and 'Reconfigure:N/A'. I couldn't find enough information to do anything about it, so I ignored it. I haven't seen any ill effect yet. Click Next (if you dare!).
7. If your happy with the summary on the last page, click Finish.
8. My conversion quoted me 7 minutes - then promptly finished within 30 seconds. 

I am now most of the way through configuring the app, I will update this post if we hit any difficulties that appear related to the conversion or running it on ESXi

I cannibalized most of these instructions from this page -> https://kb.swivelsecure.com/wiki/index.php/VMWare_Converter_How_to_Guide which deals with this same problem for a different vApp. It also hosts a copy of the converter 4.0.1 installer.

[christoph...@gmail.com]

May have spoken to fast - it might be that this app is not compatible with ESXi. It would appear that the certificates being generated by the server are not valid unfortunately. Still investigating why this is.

[Lasse Hoydal]

Appear that several appliances are having problems when you try to deploy them in ESXi 5.1.  I got "Line 59: Missing child element 'connection'"

A search on google tell this is a esxi 5.1 issue for some appliances - and I got this for "VPN appliance". Should be solvable with som kind of ovf converters.

[Derek Linz]

Open the .ovf file in an editor (notepad++ for example), delete lines 59-66:

     <Item>

        <rasd:Caption>nic</rasd:Caption>

        <rasd:Description>PCNet32 ethernet adapter on &quot;VMNetwork&quot;</rasd:Description>

        <rasd:InstanceId>5</rasd:InstanceId>

        <rasd:ResourceType>10</rasd:ResourceType>

        <rasd:ResourceSubType>PCNet32</rasd:ResourceSubType>

        <rasd:Connection>VMNetwork</rasd:Connection>

      </Item>

Save the file, import the OVF (it will now import without errors, but it won't have a NIC). Add a network adapter. Power on.

Thanks,

Derek