The Archiveteam Warrior is available for download as an OVA virtual appliance for use with VirtualBox, VMware Workstation/Player etc.

To use this virtual appliance on VMware ESXi 5.1, you need to make some changes related to unsupported virtual hardware.

The instructions below are for Windows – the VMware vSphere Client doesn’t run on my Mac or Linux boxes, so I keep a Windows VM around just to run the vSphere client.

Download the .OVA file and extract its contents

An OVA file is a TAR file. You can use 7-Zip to unpack the OVA file (to your Desktop). After unpacking, you should see 3 new files:

archiveteam-warrior-v2-20121008.ovf
archiveteam-warrior-v2-20121008-disk1.vmdk
archiveteam-warrior-v2-20121008-disk2.vmdk

Modify the .OVF file to make it compatible with ESXi

Open the .OVF file in a text editor (use Notepad or Notepad++). It is an XML formatted file, describing the virtual appliance.

First, change the Virtual Machine type (line 38):

<vssd:VirtualSystemType>virtualbox-2.2</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

into:

<vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-07</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

Next, locate the virtual SATA storage controller (starting at line 75):

<Item>
 <rasd:Address>0</rasd:Address>
 <rasd:Caption>sataController0</rasd:Caption>
 <rasd:Description>SATA Controller</rasd:Description>
 <rasd:ElementName>sataController0</rasd:ElementName>
 <rasd:InstanceID>5</rasd:InstanceID>
 <rasd:ResourceSubType>AHCI</rasd:ResourceSubType>
 <rasd:ResourceType>20</rasd:ResourceType>
</Item>

This virtual SATA controller is not supported by ESXi 5.1, so replace the item with the following:

<Item>
 <rasd:Address>0</rasd:Address>
 <rasd:Caption>SCSIController</rasd:Caption>
 <rasd:Description>SCSI Controller</rasd:Description>
 <rasd:ElementName>SCSIController</rasd:ElementName>
 <rasd:InstanceID>5</rasd:InstanceID>
 <rasd:ResourceSubType>lsilogic</rasd:ResourceSubType>
 <rasd:ResourceType>6</rasd:ResourceType>
</Item>

Save the OVF file.

Import the Virtual Appliance

  1. Start the vSphere Client and select File > Deploy OVF Template.
  2. Browse to the .OVF file (on your Desktop) and click Next.
  3. Now, vSphere Client will display a warning that the “Debian” OS is unknown, and was remapped to “Other (32-bit)”. You can ignore this warning. Deployment should complete successfully.

Power on the Virtual Machine and follow the instructions on the Console window – happy Archiving!

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