Creating a virtual appliance

A mechanism is provided for creating a virtual appliance. The mechanism receives input of an unmodified virtual appliance and a list of target models. The mechanism creates a modified virtual appliance with an ISO file, a conversion tool, and a list of validated target models based on the input. The modified virtual appliance is configured to boot on the ISO file containing a mini operating system working on all validated target models. Responsive to a deployment of the modified virtual appliance being triggered on a target model, the mini operating system is booted on the corresponding target model. The mini operating system determines the model of the current target model on which the mini operating system is running, and responsive to determining the current target model is a validated target model, applies modifications to an operating system of the virtual appliance in accordance with current target model to form a portable virtual appliance running on target model.