vSphere 6.5: OVF Import – The provided manifest file is invalid

Importing a template from vSphere 5.5 and importing to vSphere 6.5 the following error was encountered: The provided manifest file is invalid: Invalid OVF checksum algorithm: SHA1

To get fix this error the following steps were taken:

Step 1 – is to extract your ova template (after all its only a zip)

You will notice 3 files once extracted

*.vmdk – is your disk containing all your data

*.ovf – is the configuration (also the file that we will edit)

*.mf – is a manifest containing a reference to the vmdk and ovf, also holding a SHA1 hash which ESXi will check for validation. This file needs to be deleted as we are making a change to the ovf and this will surely break that hash.

Example of what the contents of the .mf file looks like:

SHA1(template.ovf)= 908e804f140ffa58083b8bd154dace330b440c78
SHA1(template-disk1.vmdk)= 29c2d44d908d0207005360dabb58967f01a1

Step 2 – Delete the file with the *.mf extension. If this exists ESXi will attempt to validate and throw an error about the templates integrity being invalid. Once this has been deleted you can deploy your OVF Template.

Ref: http://jermsmit.com/unmount-local-iso-before-making-it-an-ovf-template/

Happy Importing