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Quick Tip: Resolving OVFTool "Failed to Send File" Errors on macOS

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I frequently deploy and re-deploy VMware Virtual Appliances (OVA), which I fully automate using OVFTool from my macOS x86 system. Recently, I noticed that deployments would consistently fail roughly 3 out of 5 times with a generic error message like the following:

Deploying VCF Installer sddcm02 ...
Opening OVA source: /Volumes/Storage/Software/VCF910/PROD/COMP/SDDC_MANAGER_VCF/VCF-SDDC-Manager-Appliance-9.1.0.0.25371088.ova
The manifest does not validate
Opening VI target: vi://[email protected]/
Deploying to VI: vi://[email protected]/
Transfer Failed
Transfer Failed
Error: Failed to send file [sddcm02-2.vmdk] to the host [172.30.0.10], please check the network connection
Warning:
- The manifest is present but user flag causing to skip it
Completed with errors


While annoying 😩, I never really bothered digging into it because, after a few retries, the deployment would eventually succeed 😅

Even after upgrading to the latest OVFTool version 5.1.0 (supports VCF 9.1), the issue still continued to persist. I finally decided to enable verbose debugging during a failed deployment and reached out to OVFTool Engineering to see if they could help me understand what was happening, especially when it would eventually succeed!

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VCF 9.1 - Are You Using the Correct ESXCLI Command to Enable NVMe Tiering?

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Historically, enabling NVMe Tiering prior to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 was not very user friendly, as it required users to remember three distinct ESXCLI commands.

# Enable or Disable NVMe Tiering
esxcli system settings kernel set -s MemoryTiering -v TRUE

# Configure the Tiering % 
esxcli system settings advanced set -o /Mem/TierNvmePct -i 100

# Configure NVMe device for with NVMe Tiering
esxcli system tierdevice create -d /vmfs/devices/disks/${NVME_TIERING_DEVICE}

By now, most users have probably made a mental note of these commands, with some even incorporating them into their automated ESX Kickstart deployments (example), so it is something you do not have to remember.

VCF 9.1 introduces a new method for enabling and configuring NVMe Tiering that is significantly simpler and no longer requires a system reboot. As a result of these improvements, the ESXCLI commands used in previous releases will no longer properly enable NVMe Tiering in VCF 9.1 and later.

I have seen an increasing number of users, both internally and externally, report that they have enabled NVMe Tiering, only to discover that it was never properly activated due to the use of the legacy ESXCLI commands.


Users will typically share a screenshot from vCenter Server similar to the one above, and there are two dead giveaways that NVMe Tiering was not properly enabled.

  • The first is the traditional memory capacity view, which does not reflect the combined memory capacity based on the configured NVMe Tiering ratio.
  • The second is the new Memory Tiering widget in the vSphere UI, where the Tier 1 capacity, representing the NVMe Tiering device capacity, shows a value of 0.

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VCF 9.1 - OCuLink External Graphics (eGPU) Passthrough with vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS)

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The Minisforum MS-A2 continues to be a popular and versatile platform for running VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 in a lab environment. While the MS-A2 may be small in size, it is surprisingly capable and can even be configured to support an NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada (20GB VRAM) GPU, which I had used to deploy VMware Private AI Services (PAIS).

Although there are several half-height GPUs that can fit in an MS-A2, the overall selection remains relatively limited. For users looking for additional GPU flexibility, the MS-A2 supports an OCuLink half-height PCIe card, enabling the use of a much broader range of discrete GPUs.


Thanks to a fellow colleague who recently shared their success with me using this setup on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, including GPU passthrough to vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) cluster for AI experimentation, below are the specific BOM details for those interested.

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