The OVF package is invalid and cannot be deployed.

This guide is regarding an issue that might occur when deploying the OVF via vSphere Client.

In some cases with older versions of the client, the deployment fails and will see this error:

The OVF package is invalid and cannot be deployed. 
The following manifest file entry (line 1) is invalid: SHA1 (xxxxxxx.ovf).

Cause

The OVF is signed as SHA1 but vSphere is expecting it to be signed with SHA256.

Resolution

In order to resolve this, the VMware OVF Tool will need to be downloaded and convert the OVF to use SHA256. The command is:

ovftool.exe --shaAlgorithm=SHA256 /path/to/ovf_file.ovf /path/to/new/ovf_file.ovf

After the process completes, deploying the OVF should work without issue.

This step also can be use for similar error on OVA file. Use the command above with file extension .ova.

ovftool.exe --shaAlgorithm=SHA256 /path/to/ova_file.ova /path/to/new/ova_file.ova