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Hey SpiceHeads,

As some of you have found, we have released an installable version of the (new) https://www.spiceworks.com/download/help-desk/ Spiceworks Help Desk Server . This is not a new version of 7.5 but instead an updated release of the common codebase we talked about last year at SpiceWorld.

As you may have guessed by the file extension, this is a virtual appliance unlike the older version which was a Windows executable. We will definitely be talking about this at SpiceWorld (which is less than two weeks away!).

There is a known issue when deploying this on VMware (it appears to be an issue limited to ESXi). The team is quickly working to get a resolution for this but, in the meanwhile, I know a few SpiceHeads already know of some workarounds such as this one:

Huw3481 wrote on Sep 5, 2019 at 7:23 AM :

Found it. I followed the steps in Alessandro Tanasi @jekil's blog – This OVF package requires unsupported hardware

I seem to recall just changing the Virtual System type line - but it was almost a year ago.

Thank all of you for your patience and understanding and a special thanks for all of you IT pros such as @rod-it ​, @dbeato ​, and @huw3481 for pitching in and helping their fellow SpiceHeads out to get them up and running.​

23 Spice ups
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FWIW

Both VirtualBox and VMware Workstation import this just fine, it’s only ESXi that gets upset.

I fixed this a different way from Huw, and I imported it in to workstation then uploaded it to ESXi, I then had to play around with the networking to get it to grab an IP - but that has now also been nailed as static

3 Spice ups
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Yes, the same for me. I imported fine to Hyperv, Xencenter or XCP-ng. What i needed to work more was on the networking aspect of it. I think I wrote something about it but not a how to.

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Valid point, but if you’re going to roll this out in Production, you’re going to be using ESXi more than the other options.

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Absolutely Huw, I am simply giving my feedback, it was no different for Tron-prem, but not knowing it was going to be released, I saw no need to make it a big deal at the time… It was after all a Beta at my time of use.

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I can test AHV and Proxmox if needed.

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I doubt you’ll see Spiceworks engineering want to support those platforms given they have less than .01% market share. Juice not worth the squeeze.

This does raise the issue of saying “VMware Host” on the what is supported isn’t very specific. Ideally you’d list ESXi 6.5 6.7 etc. @sean-spiceworks ​ Whoever’s doing QA (haha, I know that’s a joke, everyone’s joined the devops cult) have them reach out to me about meeting up at Spiceworld and we can talk through validation. (It’s not that hard to build a CI/CD pipeline to test against vSphere, I’ve got a Jenkins instance that deploys a few things a day to test builds from various trees every day).

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Is the original 7.5 codebase still available to download someplace for those who do not want to use your virtual appliance?

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The original all-in-one app (including helpdesk) is still available, branded as the on-prem ‘inventory’ app. You can get it here:

https://www.spiceworks.com/download/inventory/

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Thank you!

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I’m trying to rebuild our on prem help desk as I type this, I was able import the ova into VMWare Workstation, then uploaded to ESXi. BUT… I cannot get it to pull an IP Address. DHCP or otherwise. I’ve even manually eddited the yaml and restarted, no IP . Following in case there are updates.

1 Spice up
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Imported in Proxmox, edited the netework, it is working …

I am having some troubles with detecting emails for the second organization.

Also the mobile app won’t connect … it is normal?

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Seems to be a bug… By mistake I have 2 techs with the same name and email address (yes I entered it twice by mistake) But now I cant delete either of them. I hit remove and they reappear with a page refresh. HELP :slight_smile:

@sean-spiceworks

1 Spice up
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Hey @spiceuser-ozkpa ​, you’re probably going to want to start your own topic about this specifically and tag the @spiceworks-support-team ​. I can help you with their Community Account but it sounds more like an on-prem issue and they are the experts when it comes to that.

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We’re getting with dev to figure out a solution for the dupe user issue. We have individual tickets in the support queue for those affected so far, and we will get updates out to those folks as soon as we can.

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@dbeato ​ could you give more info on how to convert it to Hyper-v?

Because usual Converter gives me: The entry 7858a89e-903a-44d7-8e17-11fcab44c136 is not a supported disk database entry for the descriptor.

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Posting this more for when someone googles this issue with a different OVA and ends up here.

There’s no manifest file and no certificate. ESXi for security reasons is going to “nope” that. The export was done with VirtualBox which doesn’t follow the OVA SPEC (Fusion and Workstation will throw an error but allow you to force it through). I’ve had a chat with the powers that be and encouraged them to use OVFTool (IT’s free as in beer!) as it can sort this out. Alternatively, Workstation and Fusion have API’s for people who prefer API rather than CLI tooling for their CI/CT pipeline etc.

Fun fact, an OVA can be untarred and you can inspect what’s in it.

5 Spice ups
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Well Hopefully @spiceworks-support-team ​ can use that then.

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What I do is the following @puigrus ​

1- Rename the Help-Desk-Server.ova File to Help-Desk-Server.tar
2- Open Tar File with 7-zip
3- Extract the help-desk-server-disk001.vmdk File
4- Use Starwind V2V Image COnverter ( V2V Converter / P2V Converter - Converting VM Formats ) to Convert the file from VMDK to VHD
5- Setup New VM in Hyperv and then use the converted VHD to be copied to your HyperV server.

5 Spice ups
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What is the default credentials?