Question

Uploading A Cloud-enabled 3rd Party Custom Image from SolarWinds

Purchased & received a .ZIP file containing image.MF, image.OVF & image.VMDK files from SolarWinds; it’s a threat monitor collector (for the Cloud). These files are sized 241 bytes, 8K and 992MB uncompressed respectively. The digital ocean documentation for custom images clearly states that a .VMDK is a valid type, and the size of the image is certainly less than the maximum upload size of 100GB.

I’ve attempted to upload the .VMDK 2-3 times, each time failing with the message that the file exceeds the 100GB limit which it obviously is not. I’m at a loss, as this shouldn’t be an issue and work as advertised. I have no idea what may or may not be taking place.

Am I missing something here?

Any help or constructive criticism is greatly encouraged and welcomed. Thanx so much in advance for any/all assistance in the matter.


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Andrew SB
DigitalOcean Employee
DigitalOcean Employee badge
June 25, 2019
Accepted Answer

The 100 GB limit for custom images applies to the virtual disk inside the image as well as the file size. For example, this vmdk file is only 5.7G:

$ ls -lah debian-9.7.vmdk
-rwx------ 1 asb lxd 5.7G Jan 26 19:32 debian-9.7.vmdk

while its filesystem is 500G:

$ qemu-img info debian-9.7.vmdk
image: debian-9.7.vmdk
file format: vmdk
virtual size: 500G (536870912000 bytes)
disk size: 5.7G
cluster_size: 65536
Format specific information:
    cid: 3514556920
    parent cid: 4294967295
    create type: monolithicSparse
    extents:
        [0]:
            virtual size: 536870912000
            filename: debian-9.7.vmdk
            cluster size: 65536
            format: 

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