Could not parse OVF at URL http://<<hostname>>/<<filename>>.ova -()

Recently, bumped into an issue where users were trying to configure a blueprint to use ImportOvfWorkflow.

When ImportOvfWorkflow is selected , we have to mention location where OVF/OVA is located.

Post that when we click on configure , it was throwing an exception

Note: URL field was intentionally removed due to security reasons

Network connectivity from vRA appliance to the Repository/Fileserver was good , as we tested it using

wget/curl by performing an ssh to appliance.

Next thing we did is to check logs on what exactly it's saying

Below snippets are taken from one of the vRA node's catalina.out ( /var/log/vmware/vcac/catalina.out )

Non-Working example

[UTC:2018-09-19 10:30:23,841 Local:2018-09-19 16:00:23,841] vcac: [component="cafe:iaas-proxy" priority="INFO" thread="tomcat-http--38" tenant="nukescloud" context="vCyddMTo" parent="" token="vCyddMTo"] com.vmware.vcac.iaas.mapper.ovf.OvfXpathParser.retrieveOvfDescriptor:428 - Parsing OVA at url http://<>/<>.ova

[UTC:2018-09-19 10:30:23,862 Local:2018-09-19 16:00:23,862] vcac: [component="cafe:iaas-proxy" priority="ERROR" thread="tomcat-http--38" tenant="nukescloud" context="vCyddMTo" parent="" token="vCyddMTo"] com.vmware.vcac.iaas.mapper.ovf.OvfXpathParser.mapOvfToMachine:220 - Could not map ova / ovf at http://<>/<>.ova, to a vRA Machine.

[UTC:2018-09-19 10:30:23,863 Local:2018-09-19 16:00:23,863] vcac: [component="cafe:iaas-proxy" priority="ERROR" thread="tomcat-http--38" tenant="nukescloud" context="vCyddMTo" parent="" token="vCyddMTo"] com.vmware.vcac.iaas.service.impl.SourceVMServiceImpl.getOvfMachine:178 - Could not parse OVF / OVA at http://<>/<>.ova

[UTC:2018-09-19 10:30:23,865 Local:2018-09-19 16:00:23,865] vcac: [component="cafe:iaas-proxy" priority="ERROR" thread="tomcat-http--38" tenant="nukescloud" context="vCyddMTo" parent="" token="vCyddMTo"] com.vmware.vcac.platform.service.rest.resolver.ApplicationExceptionHandler.handleNPE:454 - null

java.lang.NullPointerException

at com.vmware.vcac.iaas.mapper.ovf.OvfXpathParser.writeParseErrorToTelemetryLog(OvfXpathParser.java:780) ~[iaas-service-provider-7.4.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:?]

at com.vmware.vcac.iaas.mapper.ovf.OvfXpathParser.mapOvfToMachine(OvfXpathParser.java:222) ~[iaas-service-provider-7.4.0-SNAPSHOT.jar:?]

This is not a bug. If your OVA/OVF is valid then this exception will never occur

Above exception states that it's not able successfully read / parse the OVA/OVF template to give an option to user to configure it to be used via vRA Blueprints

Before even thinking of deploying OVA/OVA using vRA , test it directly by deploying it through vCenter to see if it works as expected.

In this way you would save time and easily isolate the problem.

#vRealizeAutomation