gce_ovf_export

Compute Engine OVF Export

The gce_ovf_export tool exports a Google Compute Engine VM or a Google Compute Engine machine image to a virtual appliance in OVF format. It supports exporting OVF and OVA archives.

The following configurations of the OVF virtual appliance are exported:

• Virtual Disks (represented by the DiskSection of the OVF format)
• CPU and Memory (represented by the ResourceAllocationSection of the OVF format). If the CPU/memory configuration are out of bounds of the supported range in Compute Engine, export process will set the respective configurations to the max possible.
• Boot Disk (represented by the BootDeviceSection of the OVF format)
• Guest OS (represented by the OperatingSystemSection of the OVF format)

Build

Download and install Go. Then pull and install the gce_ovf_export tool, this should place the binary in the Go bin directory:

go get github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/compute-image-import/cli_tools/gce_ovf_export

Flags

Required flags

• -destination-uri GCS path to the exported OVF package or OVA archive.

Exactly one of these must be specified:

• -instance-name Name of the VM instances to export.
• -machine-image-name Name of the machine image to export.

Optional flags

• -client-id Identifies the client of the OVF exporter. For example: gcloud or pantheon.
• -ovf-format=OVF_FORMAT One of: ovf or ova. Defaults to ovf. If ova is specified, exported OVF package will be packed as an OVA archive and individual files will be removed from GCS.
• -disk-export-format=DISK_FORMAT format for disks in OVF, such as vmdk, vhdx, vpc, or qcow2. Any format supported by qemu-img is supported by OVF export. Defaults to vmdk.
• --os=OS Operating system to be set in OVF descriptor. Overrides the value detected by the exporter. Integer based on CIM operating system found at https://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/cim-html/2.51.0/CIM_OperatingSystem.html
• -network-tier=NETWORK_TIER Specifies the network tier that will be used to configure the instance. NETWORK_TIER must be one of: PREMIUM, STANDARD. The default value is PREMIUM.
• -subnet=SUBNET Name of the subnetwork in your project to use for the image export. If the network resource is in legacy mode, do not provide this property. If the network is in auto subnet mode, providing the subnetwork is optional. If the network is in custom subnet mode, then this field should be specified. Zone should be specified if this field is specified.
• -timeout=TIMEOUT; default="2h" Maximum time an export can last before it is failed as TIMEOUT. For example, specifying 2h will fail the process after 2 hours. See gcloud topic datetimes for information on duration formats.
• -project=PROJECT project to run in, overrides what is set in workflow
• -scratch-bucket-gcs-path=PATH GCS scratch bucket to use, overrides what is set in workflow
• -oauth=OAUTH_PATH path to oauth json file.
• -compute-endpoint-override=ENDPOINT API endpoint to override default
• -disable-gcs-logging do not stream logs to GCS
• -disable-cloud-logging do not stream logs to Cloud Logging
• -disable-stdout-logging do not display individual workflow logs on stdout
• -client-version identifies the version of the client of the exporter

Usage

Export a VM instance:

gce_ovf_export -destination-uri=GCS_PATH -instance-name=INSTANCE_NAME
[-client-id=CLIENT_ID] [-ovf-format=OVF_FORMAT]
[-disk-export-format=DISK_FORMAT] [--os] [-network=NETWORK] [-subnet=SUBNET]
[-timeout=TIMEOUT; default="2h"] [-project=PROJECT]
[-scratch-bucket-gcs-path=SCRATCH_BUCKET_PATH] [-oauth=OAUTH_FILE_PATH]
[-compute-endpoint-override=CE_ENDPOINT] [-disable-gcs-logging] 
[-disable-cloud-logging] [-disable-stdout-logging] [-client-version]

Export a machine image:

gce_ovf_export -destination-uri=GCS_PATH -machine-image-name=MACHINE_IMAGE 
[-client-id=CLIENT_ID] [-ovf-format=OVF_FORMAT] 
[-disk-export-format=DISK_FORMAT] [--os] [-network=NETWORK] [-subnet=SUBNET]
[-timeout=TIMEOUT; default="2h"] [-project=PROJECT]
[-scratch-bucket-gcs-path=SCRATCH_BUCKET_PATH] [-oauth=OAUTH_FILE_PATH]
[-compute-endpoint-override=CE_ENDPOINT] [-disable-gcs-logging] 
[-disable-cloud-logging] [-disable-stdout-logging] [-client-version]