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OVF Deployment Issue Ubuntu Snappy 15.04-stable (5 cloud)

When you have time, you do something.

Tonight I was headed over the Ubuntu site to grab me the latest version because I was thinking of installing OpenStack when I noticed on their landing page and noticed “Get Ubuntu Core” ; yes something new.

But where is my Raspberry Pi? No worries they have OVF images I can use to deploy to my vCenter Lab here at home. So I started just this and encountered an issue I once had.

Lets walk you through my events.

Downloading the image

  1. Found myself on the Ubuntu Internet of Things landing page: http://www.ubuntu.com/internet-of-things
  2. Located the OVF section of the getting started page: http://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/start/
  3. Downloaded the OVA image (x86): 15.04/stable

Deploying the OVF Template 

  1. Using the vSphere Client, connected to vCenter (or stand alone ESXi host)
  2. Select server to deploy to and choose file > Deploy OVF Template
  3. Browse to the path were you downloaded your OVF image and select it

This is when I received the following error:
The following manifest file entry (line 1) is invalid: SHA256(core-stable-amd64-cloud.ovf)= d4b8922ed38a4eb9055576f7b46f8e92f463398298f3a42af942f25457d4d41c

Troubleshooting Step 1

  1. I extracted the OVA image (core-stable-amd64-cloud) with 7zip
  2. Once extracted attempted the steps detailed above “Deploying the OVF Template”

The same error was thrown once more.

Troubleshooting Step 2

Within the extracted folder exists the following file types: certificate, manifest, ovf (instruction / configuration) and disk image

  1. I remove the SHA256(core-stable-amd64-cloud.ovf)= d4b8922ed38a4eb9055576f7b46f8e92f463398298f3a42af942f25457d4d41c line from the .MF (manifest)
  2. Once removed I attempted the steps detailed above “Deploying the OVF Template”

It failed also, only this time the error started the the remaining SHA256 was also invalid.

Troubleshooting Step 3 – Third time is the charm

  1. Moved into the extracted OVA folder
  2. Deleted the .mf (manifest) file
  3. Followed steps above “Deploying the OVF Template” only this time using the OVF located in the extracted folder

This go around everything worked

So why did this happen?

The template was changed after its creation which invalidated the SHA256 key.  I have made templates myself, only to have to edit something out such as removing a CD Rom reference which later caused me issues.

I hope this helps if you face this incident or something similar

 

Thanks for visiting – jermal

Also published here

4 replies on “OVF Deployment Issue Ubuntu Snappy 15.04-stable (5 cloud)”

> So why did this happen?

Are you _sure_ the SHA256 hash was invalid? I ran into this problem with the 16.04 xenial cloudimg today, and I think I came to the conclusion that ESXi and VSphere (even the latest version) does not support SHA256 manifests at all. Maybe this is a feature that has been implemented in Workstation, but not in ESXi? I can’t come up with any other explanation for why these apparently invalid OVA files are passed off as OK, and yours seems to be the only (solved) post I can find about it on the internet.

Check out this VMware community forum thread that went unanswered:

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/527082

I tried a couple of different OVA files from a few different sources before I came to the conclusion that I should check the hashes myself for validity, and the manifest’s SHA256 sum appeared to be correct (although there was a very strange construction of “.ovf.ovf” in the manifest that did seem to be in error, the checksum itself indicated that the files had not actually changed since my OVA was built.) I rebuild the manifest by hand with SHA1 sums and tar’red it back up into an OVA, and I was able to import it successfully.

Hope this information helps someone!

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