What is a .OVA file?
OVA is a single-file archive of an OVF virtual machine, ready to import.
- Did you know
- An OVA packs a whole virtual appliance - disks and config - into one shareable file.
- An OVA is simply a TAR archive containing the OVF descriptor, the virtual disk images and a manifest of checksums.
- Unpacking an OVA yields the loose OVF files, which together describe the same appliance in editable form.
- What Analyser reads
- Inspect virtual-machine descriptors (VMware .vmx, VirtualBox .vbox, OVF/OVA), disc images (Nero .nrg, Alcohol .mds/.mdf, CloneCD), embedded firmware (Intel HEX, Motorola S-record, UF2, ELF/AXF, Device Tree Blobs, U-Boot uImage), partition tables (MBR/GPT with GUIDs), Linux filesystem superblocks (ext2/3/4, SquashFS, cramfs, romfs) and Windows imaging (WIM/ESD) - reading headers directly, no upload.
- Depth of analysis
- .OVA is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .OVA file
- Drag a .OVA file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.