Getting Started, Converting the OVF for VirtualBox

Owned by Mark Unwin
Last updated: May 26, 2024 by Mitchell Saunders
3 min read

VirtualBox will import directly from an OVF/OVA file so you can just start up VirtualBox and select "Import Appliance..."

On the Import Virtual Appliance window that will display, choose the location of where the FirstWave NMIS OVA was downloaded to. Click Next.

You will then be prompted to review the Appliance settings. Click Finish here.

The import process may take a couple of minutes to complete.

Once powered on, use our provided credentials to login. You can find this in the Install instructions on our website.

Once imported, we recommend you change the following settings:

Network Adapter from NAT to Bridged

  1. If you find that the virtual machine's network adapter is set to NAT, you will need to change this to Bridged Adapter. Click on the Virtual Machine in Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager, then click Settings.
  2. Click on Network, then in Adapter 1 change the "Attached to" dropdown option to Bridged. Click OK after this has been changed.

Tip: Once authenticated, our appliance ships with a Message of the Day (MOTD) which will provide you with the virtual machine's IP address, used to access the NMIS Suite Graphical User Interface (GUI). You can also find this by typing "ip a" into the console of the virtual machine.

Increasing Video Memory

  1. While the virtual machine is shut down, click on the Virtual Machine in Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager, then click Settings.
  2. Click on the Display tab, then increase the "Video Memory" slider to at minimum 16 MB. Click OK after this has been changed.

Changing the Graphics Controller

  1. While the virtual machine is shut down, click on the Virtual Machine in Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager, then click Settings.
  2. Click on the Display tab, then change the Graphics Controller to VMSVGA using the dropdown menu. Click OK after this has been changed.

Notes

Changing the virtual machine console display

If you find that the Virtual Machine console screen is small, you can change this by doing the following:

  1. While in the VirtualBox VM (note the name here is different to VirtualBox - which is for the manager), click on View.
  2. Click on Scaled Mode. This will automatically change.

VirtualBox Documentation

If you have any trouble the VirtualBox documentation is here: https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html#ovf

Automatic time synchronization

In some cases the system may log you out repeatedly due to the OVA by default having Automatic time synchronization enabled. To avoid this issue, you will need to:

  1. Shutdown the virtual machine.
  2. Click on Settings, then System.
  3. Check the "Enable Hardware Clock in UTC time" checkbox and click OK.