It looks like the folks over at CoreOS have now also produced an OVA image which can be easily imported into a vSphere or even vCloud Air environment. Previously, it took a few addition steps to convert the "hosted" disk image originally meant for VMware Fusion/Workstation to properly work in a vSphere/vCloud Air based environment. The CoreOS OVA is currently only available in the CoreOS Alpha channel for the "Production" image which also includes VMware's open-vm-tools and the latest release as of today is CoreOS 554.0.0.
You can using either the vSphere C# or vSphere Web Client to import the OVA or you can automate this simply by using command-line via ovftool. Here's an example snippet that you can run directly against an ESXi host:
/Applications/VMware\ OVF\ Tool/ovftool \
--name=CoreOS \
"--net:VM Network=VM Network" \
--datastore=mini-local-datastore-2 \
--diskMode=thin \
'http://alpha.release.core-os.net/amd64-usr/554.0.0/coreos_production_vmware_ova.ova' \
'vi://root:*protected email*'
You can also import the CoreOS OVA into vCloud Air's but you will need to connect into the vCloud Director interface to upload or you can also use ovftool. For more details on how to import using ovftool, check out their documentation here.
Here's a screenshot of deploying CoreOS from a vCloud Air Catalog:
The "Production" CoreOS image does not contain insecure SSH keys as the "insecure" image and so you will still need to create a Cloud Config ISO if you wish to further customize the image including login credentials. You can take a look at the script I had created for deploying CoreOS from the Stable channel and for more details check out the Cloud Config documentation as well.
Thanks William for this update to your previous post ("How to quickly deploy CoreOS on ESXi?")
I tried your instructions "to the letter" it but I get:
[quote]
mini:~ me$ /Applications/VMware\ OVF\ Tool/ovftool --name aCoreOS "--net:VM Network=VM Network" --datastore=datastore --diskMode=thin 'http://alpha.release.core-os.net/amd64-usr/554.0.0/coreos_production_vmware_ova.ova' vi://root:
dyld: Symbol not found: _mach_zone_info
Referenced from: /Applications/VMware OVF Tool/ovftool
Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
in /Applications/VMware OVF Tool/ovftool
Trace/BPT trap
mini:~ me$ uname -a
Darwin mini.lan 10.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0: Tue Jun 7 16:33:36 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1504.15.3~1/RELEASE_I386 i386
mini:~ me$
[end quote]
I am running the ovftoool from the package downloaded Today from VMware. I assumed it should run on Mac OS X 10.6.8 without problems, but maybe I am wrong. ESXi 5.5 is running metal (a non-Aplple whitebox).
Am I missing something?
What version of ovftool are you using? It looks like there might be a problem with ovftool itself as it's throwing some strange errors from your output. I've used both 3.5.1 and 4.0.0 which worked fine but I'm also using newer version of OSX (Yosemite). It shouldn't matter that your ESXi host is not running on Apple hardware, this is all client side
Hello, I am having the same issues right now. Was this ever resolved?
I get this error when using ovftool:
Transfer Failed
Error: File (coreos_production_vmware_ova-disk1.vmdk) could not be found.
This is on OSX 10.10 Yosemite to VMware ESXi 5.5 (free version).
When I download the OVA-file, that specific file is in the archive.
Any clues?
FYI It DOES work when pushing the OVA-file directly from local disk (e.g. the one I downloaded), so without the http-URL.
Ok crazy question, I'm playing with the OVA and have it deployed but my search online isn't leading me to any default user/password. Do you happen to know what it is?
There is no login enabled. Check this post on how to enable one for "core": http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2104303
KB doesn't work for the OVA file apparently... I tried on both fusion and esx and both give me the following error when editing the grub entry. file '/syslinux/vmlinuz-boot_kernel' not found. Would I need to contact CoreOS to "support" this since it's in beta?
It worked for me that way with 554.0.0 on ESXi 5.5. Make sure you put "coreos.autologin" at the very last position on the very last line.
using the 557.0.0 (i.e. latest build) I entered it exactly as in the kb article. I just based on your suggestion removed the extra parameters in the kb and just used linux$linux_suffix '/syslinux'/'vmlinuz-boot_kernel' coreos.autologin
I attempted with quotes and without still the same error message.
Ok disregard, the kb article is junk if you copy it line by line it won't work... If I just alter the USR-A or B and add the coreos.autologin at the end of the line it works flawlessly! Thanks for quick reply guys!