BitNami offers many Virtual Appliances of popular open source software and in order to run those on VMware ESX/ ESXi platform we need to convert the virtual machine to .OVF format. The best way to achieve this is by using the VMware vCenter Converter Tool to convert the machine to the .OVF format. Download a version previous of 4.3, after this version the VMware Converter does not include this feature.

But my personal experience differed from the guide on BitNami website. I had followed the guide but when I tried to import the .OVF in ESX/ ESXi it gave me error “no space left for device on parent controller” After doing some research on Google I managed to get it working as following.

• Choose the .vmx file from the uncompressed folder.
• Select the destination type “VMware Workstation 6.5.x” and choose a folder on to save the virtual machine.
• Edit the Product Information and set the Product Name.
• Once the whole process finishes, Run the conversion wizard again and choose the converted machine from the previous step as your source.
• Select the destination type “Virtual appliance” and the distribution format “Folder of files”.
• Edit the Product Information and set the Product Name (if required).

 

You should now be able to import the .OVF into ESX/ ESXi server using the vSphere Client.

Hopefully it will help anyone who is struggling to get the BitNami Virtual Machine working on VMware ESX/ ESXi platform.