Description

Current documentation for OVA import (specifically in the Migrating your virtual machines to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization guide) does not explicitly state the intended scope of the feature. This leads users to believe that vendor-supplied OVA appliances (e.g., F5, Cisco, Netscaler) are supported for import.

Current Issues Found:

1. Technical Failure: Vendor appliances often fail the virt-v2v conversion step with errors such as "no bootloader detected" or disk layout incompatibilities.
2. Functional Bug: Setting skipGuestConversion: true to bypass the failure results in a blank PVC rather than a raw data copy of the disk bits.
3. Supportability: Even if conversion succeeds, vendor support is typically tied to the specific image format they provide (e.g., QCOW2 for KVM/OpenShift).

Proposed Content Improvement

The documentation should include a Note or Important block in the OVA Migration chapter stating:

• Target Scope: OVA import is intended for migrating supported guest operating systems exported from VMware vSphere.

• Vendor Appliances: It is not recommended for third-party vendor appliances. Users should use the vendor-provided QCOW2 or KVM-native images instead.

• Support Warning: Converting a vendor OVA may invalidate vendor support agreements.

Suggested Locations for Improvement

1. Planning Guide

Location: Planning your migration to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization -> Section: Supported Migration Paths

• Change: Add a footnote to the "OVA" source row.

• Text: "OVA migration is validated for VMware-exported virtual machines. For third-party networking or security appliances, check with the vendor for native KVM/OpenShift images (QCOW2)."

2. Migration Guide (The "Hot" Spot)

Location: Migrating your virtual machines to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization -> Chapter 5: Migrating from OVA

• Change: Insert a "Prerequisites" or "About OVA Import" section at the very beginning of the chapter.

• Text: > Note: The OVA import process utilizes virt-v2v to prepare the guest OS for KVM. Vendor-supplied appliances often use proprietary bootloaders or disk layouts that are incompatible with this conversion. To ensure stability and vendor support, always prioritize importing the vendor's native .qcow2 image via the OpenShift Virtualization "Upload Image" or "Import from URL" workflow rather than using the MTV OVA path.

3. API Reference / Advanced Settings

Location: Documentation regarding skipGuestConversion

• Change: Clarify the behavior of this flag.

• Text: Ensure it is noted that skipGuestConversion is intended for specific scenarios where the guest is already KVM-compatible and that it requires a valid pre-populated source or specific disk configuration to avoid empty PVCs.