What is OVA & OVF Files ?

What is OVA & OVF Files ?

OVF & OVA both are virtualization file format’s. Which are used to export & import virtual machines from one server to another. It can be used in VMware, Virtual Box & RHEL virtualization.

OVF:-
OVF stands for Open virtualization Format used for pack & distribute virtual appliances or virtual machines.OVF package contains multiple files into one directory. one is the description file (.ovf), VM state files such as *.vmdk or *.vhd & manifest file.

OVA:-
OVA stands for Open virtualization Appliance. It is only a single file which contains all the files of ovf into single file called ova.It is an tar or zip archive of all the files into one directory.

Which is Better :-
You can consider OVA is better because you have to transfer or send only 1 file that is ova instead of multiple files in ovf

How to combine all .ova files into one file:

Run the following command to combine the .ova files into one .ova file:

Go to the directory where all .ova files and issue the below command

On Linux: cat VBox*.ova > VBox_EM13_1_0_0_Linux64.ova
On Windows: type VBox*.ova > VBox_EM13_1_0_0_Linux64.ova