Just a quick post following up on yesterday’s entry about creating a virtual machine in VirtualBox. One useful feature of a virtual machine host is being able to load and run virtual appliances.
It is common for virtual appliances to only be available as a VMWare VMDK so it would be useful to know how to convert the VMDK to VirtualBox’s native VDI format. This works with either multi-part or flat VMDKs. As a bonus this process can also be used to convert from Microsofts Virtual VHD format. I am currently using VirtualBox 3.1, YMMV with earlier versions.
Here is the command to run the conversion:
VBoxManage clonehd VirtAppliance.vmdk VirtAppliance.vdi -format VDI
You will then be able to load the VDI as your normally would.