ISO/IEC 17203:2017

INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 17203
Second edition
2017-09
Information technology — Open
Virtualization Format (OVF)
specification
Technologies de l'information — Spécification du format de
virtualisation ouvert (OVF)
Reference number
©
ISO/IEC 2017
© ISO/IEC 2017, Published in Switzerland
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on the internet or an intranet, without prior
written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below or ISO’s member body in the country of
the requester.
ISO copyright office
Ch. de Blandonnet 8 • CP 401
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva, Switzerland
Tel. +41 22 749 01 11
Fax +41 22 749 09 47
copyright@iso.org
www.iso.org
ii © ISO/IEC 2017 – All rights reserved

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International
Electrotechnical Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization.
National bodies that are members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of
International Standards through technical committees established by the respective
organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC technical
committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations,
governmental and non‐governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the
work. In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical
committee, ISO/IEC JTC 1.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further
maintenance are described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different
approval criteria needed for the different types of document should be noted. This
document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives,
Part 2 (see http://www.iso.org/directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be
the subject of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any
or all such patent rights. Details of any patent rights identified during the development
of the document will be in the Introduction and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations
received (see www.iso.org/patents).
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users
and does not constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation on the voluntary nature of Standard, the meaning of the ISO specific
terms and expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about
ISO’s adherence to the WTO principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) see the
following URL: Foreword – Supplementary information
This document was prepared by ANSI (as INCITS 469‐2015) and was adopted, under a
special “fast‐track procedure”, by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information
technology.
The list of all currently available parts of ISO/IEC 17203 series, under the general title
Information technology, can be found on the ISO web site.

© ISO/IEC 2017 – All rights reserved iii

CONTENTS
1  Scope . 1
2  Normative references . 1
3  Terms and definitions . 3
4  Symbols and abbreviated terms . 5
5  OVF package . 5
5.1  OVF package structure . 5
5.2  Virtual disk formats . 6
5.3  OVF package options . 6
5.4  Distribution as a set of files . 7
6  OVF descriptor . 7
7  Envelope element . 8
7.1  File references . 8
7.2  Content element . 9
7.3  Extensibility . 10
7.4  Conformance . 10
8  Virtual hardware description . 11
8.1  VirtualHardwareSection . 11
8.2  Extensibility . 12
8.3  Virtual hardware elements . 12
8.4  Ranges on elements . 14
9  Core metadata sections . 16
9.1  DiskSection . 17
9.2  NetworkSection . 18
9.3  ResourceAllocationSection . 18
9.4  AnnotationSection . 19
9.5  ProductSection . 19
9.6  EulaSection . 21
9.7  StartupSection . 22
9.8  DeploymentOptionSection . 23
9.9  OperatingSystemSection . 24
9.10  InstallSection . 24
9.11  EnvironmentFilesSection . 24
9.12  BootDeviceSection . 25
9.13  SharedDiskSection . 25
9.14  ScaleOutSection . 26
9.15  PlacementGroupSection and PlacementSection . 27
9.16  EncryptionSection . 28
10  Internationalization . 29
10.1  Internal resource bundles . 29
10.2  External resource bundles . 29
10.3  Message content in external file . 30
11  OVF environment and OVF environment file . 30
11.1  Transport media . 31
11.2  Transport media type . 31
ANNEX A (informative) Symbols and conventions . 33
ANNEX B (normative) OVF XSD . 34
ANNEX C (informative) OVF mime type registration template . 35
ANNEX D (informative) OVF examples . 37
D.1  Examples of OVF package structure . 37
D.2  Examples of distribution of files . 37
D.3  Example of envelope element . 38
D.4  Example of file references . 38
D.5  Example of content element . 39
D.6  Examples of extensibility. 39
D.7  Examples of VirtualHardwareSection . 40
© ISO/IEC 2017 – All rights reserved i

D.8  Examples of virtual hardware elements . 40
D.9  Example of ranges on elements . 41
D.10  Example of DiskSection . 42
D.11  Example of NetworkSection . 42
D.12  Example of ResourceAllocationSection . 42
D.13  Example of annotation . 43
D.14  Example of Product section . 43
D.15  Example of EULA section . 43
D.16  Example of StartupSection . 44
D.17  Example of DeploymentOptionSection . 44
D.18  Example of OperatingSystemSection . 45
D.19  Example of InstallSection . 45
D.20  Example of EnvironmentFilesSection . 45
D.21  Example of BootDeviceSection . 45
D.22  Example of SharedDiskSection . 46
D.23  Example of ScaleOutSection . 46
D.24  Example of PlcementGroupSection . 47
D.25  Example of EncryptionSection . 48
D.26  Example of internationalization . 49
D.27  Example of message content in an external file . 50
D.28  Example of environment document . 51
ANNEX E (informative) Network port profile examples . 52
E.1  Example 1 (OVF descriptor for one virtual system and one network with an inlined
network port profile) . 52
E.2  Example 2 (OVF descriptor for one virtual system and one network with a locally
referenced network port profile) .
...