The following steps show how to import an appliance in OVF format.

1. Double-click on the OVF or OVA file.

   creates file type associations automatically for any OVF and OVA files on your host OS.

   The Appliance Settings page of the Import Virtual Appliance wizard is shown.

   Import Virtual Appliance Wizard: Appliance Settings Import Virtual Appliance Wizard: Appliance Settings

2. The Appliance Settings page shows the VMs described in the OVF or OVA file and enables you to change the VM settings.

   By default, membership of VM groups is preserved on import for VMs that were initially exported from . You can change this behavior by using the Primary Group setting for the VM.

   The following global settings apply to all of the VMs that you import:

   • Base Folder: Specifies the directory on the host in which to store the imported VMs.

     If an appliance has multiple VMs, you can specify a different directory for each VM by editing the Base Folder setting for the VM.

   • MAC Address Policy: Reinitializes the MAC addresses of network cards in your VMs prior to import, by default. You can override the default behavior and preserve the MAC addresses on import.

   • Import Hard Drives as VDI: Imports hard drives in the VDI format rather than in the default VMDK format.

3. Click Finish to import the appliance.

   copies the disk images and creates local VMs with the settings described on the Appliance Settings page. The imported VMs are shown in the list of VMs in VirtualBox Manager.

   Because disk images are large, the VMDK images that are included with virtual appliances are shipped in a compressed format that cannot be used directly by VMs. So, the images are first unpacked and copied, which might take several minutes.

You can use the VBoxManage import command to import an appliance. See .