hyper2kvm

Installation Guide (Fedora)

This document describes a clean, RPM-first installation on Fedora for VMware → KVM workflows, covering both:

Control plane

vSphere APIs, inventory, orchestration
pyvmomi, govc, optional ovftool

Data plane

High-performance disk access via VMware VDDK
libvixDiskLib.so

Philosophy

This project is intentionally not “click migrate and pray”.

The goals:

keep Python boring and deterministic (Fedora RPMs)
install system compatibility libraries first
isolate proprietary VMware tooling under /opt
avoid runtime surprises, ABI mismatches, and loader errors

If something can fail at runtime, we make it impossible to reach that state.

🧩 1. Supported Platform

🐧 Fedora 43+ (tested on Fedora 43)
🐍 Python 3.x (system Python)
🔐 Root access for system installs
🛡️ SELinux enforcing (supported)

2. Required System Compatibility Libraries (Install First)

Modern Fedora intentionally removes legacy libraries that ⚠️ VMware-provided binaries still depend on.

Install these before any VMware tooling:

sudo dnf install -y \
  libxcrypt-compat \
  libnsl

Why this matters

These packages provide:

libcrypt.so.1 → required by ovftool.bin
legacy NSS / RPC symbols used by VMware tools

Installing them up front ensures you never see errors like:

error while loading shared libraries: libcrypt.so.1: cannot open shared object file

Optional sanity check:

ldconfig -p | grep libcrypt.so.1

🟢 If it shows up, you’re future-proofed.

🐍 3. Python Dependencies (Fedora RPMs – Recommended)

All required Python libraries are available as official Fedora RPMs and should be installed system-wide.

Install

sudo dnf install -y \
  python3-rich \
  python3-termcolor \
  python3-watchdog \
  python3-pyyaml \
  python3-requests \
  python3-pyvmomi

What gets installed

python3-rich – structured logging, progress bars, TUI output
python3-termcolor – ANSI color helpers
python3-watchdog – filesystem event monitoring (inotify)
python3-PyYAML – YAML parsing
python3-requests – HTTP client
python3-pyvmomi – VMware vSphere API SDK

Fedora automatically pulls safe dependencies such as:

python3-markdown-it-py, python3-mdurl
python3-pygments

🚫 No pip. 🚫 No wheels. 🚫 No ABI drift.

✅ 4. Verify Python Installation (System Python)

Run the following using system Python (no virtualenv):

python3 - <<'EOF'
import rich
import termcolor
import watchdog
import yaml
import requests
import pyVmomi

print("✅ All system RPM imports OK")
print("pyVmomi version:", pyVmomi.__version__)
EOF

Expected:

✔ no tracebacks
✔ pyVmomi reports 8.0.x

🧭 5. Control Plane: `govc` (govmomi CLI)

govc is the preferred open-source control-plane tool for vSphere:

🔎 inventory and discovery
🗄️ datastore operations
🔁 VM lifecycle management
⚡ fast, scriptable CLI access

📥 Install govc

Download from:

👉 https://github.com/vmware/govmomi/releases

Example:

curl -LO https://github.com/vmware/govmomi/releases/download/v0.44.0/govc_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz
tar -xzf govc_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz
sudo install -m 0755 govc /usr/local/bin/govc

Verify

which govc
govc version

🤝 How it fits

govc → fast CLI, bulk ops, visibility
pyvmomi → Python orchestration and automation

They are complementary, not redundant.

6. Optional Tool: VMware OVF Tool (`ovftool`)

VMware OVF Tool is an optional, proprietary utility used for:

exporting OVF / OVA directly from vCenter or ESXi
vendor-supported packaging of VM metadata and disks

Policy in this project:

🟢 govc is the default
🟡 ovftool is opt-in
🔴 never required

📥 6.1 Download OVF Tool (ZIP)

Download the Linux ZIP archive from Broadcom:

👉 https://developer.broadcom.com/tools/open-virtualization-format-ovf-tool/latest

File name will resemble:

VMware-ovftool-4.x.y-lin.x86_64.zip

🗂️ 6.2 Install ovftool (ZIP-based, Deterministic)

Extract directly under /opt:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/ovftool
sudo unzip VMware-ovftool-*-lin.x86_64.zip -d /opt/ovftool
sudo chmod -R a+rX /opt/ovftool

Resulting layout:

/opt/ovftool/
  ├── ovftool
  ├── ovftool.bin
  ├── lib/
  └── env/

✔ No system pollution ✔ No installers ✔ Fully auditable

🔗 6.3 Add ovftool to PATH

sudo ln -s /opt/ovftool/ovftool /usr/local/bin/ovftool

Verify:

ovftool --version

Expected:

VMware ovftool 4.x.y (build-xxxxxx)

Because compatibility libraries were installed first, 🟢 no loader errors will occur.

7. Data Plane: VMware VDDK (libvixDiskLib)

For high-performance VMDK access (snapshots, block-level reads), install VMware VDDK.

Fedora does not ship VDDK. This is expected.

📥 Download

👉 https://developer.broadcom.com/sdks/vmware-virtual-disk-development-kit-vddk/latest (Tested with VDDK 9.0.0.0)

🗂️ Install Layout

sudo mkdir -p /opt/vmware
sudo tar -xzf VMware-vix-disklib-*.tar.gz -C /opt/vmware

Result:

/opt/vmware/vmware-vix-disklib/
  ├── bin/
  ├── lib64/
  │   ├── libvixDiskLib.so
  │   ├── libvixDiskLib.so.7
  │   ├── libvixDiskLib.so.6
  │   └── libvixDiskLib.so.5

🔗 Register Libraries

echo "/opt/vmware/vmware-vix-disklib/lib64" | sudo tee /etc/ld.so.conf.d/vmware-vddk.conf
sudo ldconfig