Hack the TKGm management cluster version, and run a tanzu-framework init

You can use your own OVA for TKG management clusters in a variety of ways.  Today I found a workaround while trying to test a special OVA where i 

- download the OVA

- look in its contents for the VERSION

- modify the value of the tkr-bom locally , where im running tanzu management-cluster create

heres the details

So , today i was making a Management cluster, and i found i didnt have "The right" OVAs.  For experimentation, was attempting a custom version of https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/tanzu-framework/ out from source.  

However, it wanted kubernetes 1.23.10 instead of the 1.23.8 that we had installed in our VSphere clusters.

kubo@g3eI69UBTdPLf:~$ tanzu management-cluster create --use-existing-bootstrap-cluster --file geetika.yaml

Note: To skip the prompts and directly deploy a non-integrated Tanzu Kubernetes Grid instance on vSphere 7.0, you can set the 'DEPLOY_TKG_ON_VSPHERE7' configuration variable to 'true'

...

...

Error: configuration validation failed: vSphere template kubernetes version validation failed: unable to get or validate VM Template for given Tanzu Kubernetes release: unable to find VM Template associated with TanzuKubernetesRelease v1.23.10+vmware.1-tkg.1-zshippable. Please upload at least one VM Template from  ... v1.23.10+vmware.1-tkg.1-116b7a84930e5368c38aa867f998ce22] to continue

Error: exit status 1

Note - I dont have a 1.23.10 OVA, but i still want to this version of tanzu-framework  , so, can i make tanzu cli use a different ova on startup? sure...

1) Look in the OVA file you want to run...  you can run tar -xvf myova.ova and then it will spit out a bunch of files locally.  if you grep around, youll see in the OVF file, theres a VERSION field:

./ubuntu-2004-kube-v1.23.8+vmware.2.ovf:      <Property ovf:key="VERSION" ovf:type="string" ovf:userConfigurable="false" ovf:value="v1.23.8+vmware.2-tkg.1-85a434f93857371fccb566a414462981"/>

2) No go jam that Version into the config file for your tanzu cli:

~/.config/tanzu/tkg/bom/tkr-bom-v1.23.10+vmware.1-tkg.1-zshippable.yaml 

ova:

- name: ova-photon-3

  osinfo:

    name: photon

    version: "3"

    arch: amd64

  version: v1.23.10+vmware.1-tkg.1-efe12079f22627aa1246398eba077476

- name: ova-ubuntu-2004

  osinfo:

    name: ubuntu

    version: "20.04"

    arch: amd64

  version: v1.23.8+vmware.2-tkg.1-85a434f93857371fccb566a414462981

#  version: ubuntu-2004-kube-v1.23.8+vmware.2-tkg.1-85a434f93857371fccb566a414462981

#

#  version: v1.23.10+vmware.1-tkg.1-f83d41690f8742e7388f2c553fd9a1bb