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5,414 Views 6 Replies Last post: Jul 3, 2008 10:58 AM by kjb007 RSS
ABailward Lurker
ABailward
3 posts since
Jun 30, 2008
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Jun 30, 2008 5:09 PM

Mount an ESX VMDK file from Other system?

I'm really desparate to be able to mount a ESX 3.5 vmdk file on a local system, linux or windows.  Currently the round trip time to make minor changes to an ESX image I'm sending to the QA department is hours long when it should be minutes, mostly due to having to make changes to the image on a running ESX machine, do various cleanup bits (ie: remove .bash_history), then download from the ESX server to my workstation, zip it up, then sending it to QA.

 

 

I'd love to be able to mount the disk image on my desktop machine, edit / add/remove any needed files, and simply send that straight to QA, instead of the much longer procedure of upload to ESX, edit, clean, download, etc.

 

 

I know that the vmware-mount.pl is gone for the workstation disk type, but I saw someone here got esx images to mount using the VCB framework.... is that the way to go?  If so, is VCB a free download or something that I can evaluate and use with just a VI3.5 ESX install?

 

 

 

Alternatively, is there a way to speed up the untarring of a 15G image from a local machine to a vmfs partition?  Or is that best left to another discussion?

 

 

 

Many thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alan

Tags: vmdk, mount, backups, esx3.5
hkrishnan Enthusiast VMware Employees
hkrishnan
33 posts since
Feb 19, 2008
Currently Being Moderated
1. Jun 30, 2008 7:45 PM in response to: ABailward
Re: Mount an ESX VMDK file from Other system?

Hi Alan-

 

You may want to check out vmware virtual disk development kit (VDDK). it includes a tool called diskmount that can be used to mount virtual disks. you can mount virtual disks (VMDK) and edit them if they VMs are offline (not powered on). Here is the link for download

http://www.vmware.com/download/sdk/virtualdisk.html

 

VDDK is a free download.

 

Hari

anilksh Lurker
anilksh
4 posts since
Feb 8, 2006
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2. Jun 30, 2008 11:46 PM in response to: ABailward
Re: Mount an ESX VMDK file from Other system?

HI

sumitgad Novice
sumitgad
20 posts since
Sep 26, 2007
Currently Being Moderated
3. Jun 30, 2008 11:50 PM in response to: ABailward
Re: Mount an ESX VMDK file from Other system?

Yes, You can use Mountvm utility included in VCB to mount a VMDK file on the Windows system but for this, first you need to take the backup of your vmdk file using VCB as the Mountvm utility can only mount the vmdk file that has been backed up using VCB.

 

I have implemented the same thing in my environment in which the backup of the VMs gets stored in the NFS partition attached to the ESX server using the vcbMounter utility and then the same NFS volume is attached to the widows server through which i can mount the vmdk file on the widows server.

 

 

 

Do let me know if you need more information about this.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

Sumit

 

 

 

Vmware Certified Professional

 

 

kjb007 Guru vExpert
kjb007
6,682 posts since
Sep 18, 2006
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4. Jul 1, 2008 5:49 AM in response to: ABailward
Re: Mount an ESX VMDK file from Other system?

 

Ok, please clarify a bit.  Do you have the vm's on an ESX host, and are having trouble editing the vmdk from another vm, or is the vmdk on your machine?

 

 

 

 

 

Generally, the tar/untar is faster on a non-vmfs filesystem.  To save a step, you can run the tar as a stream, and scp the stream at the same time.  So as the stream is tarring, you start to copy it over to where you really need it.  It is still scp, of course, but it may be somewhat faster.

 

 

 

 

 

The below is what I do, when I've had to move an entire vm to another system.

 

 

 

 

 

tar cf - <vm_folder_name> | scp http://communities.vmware.com/mailto:root@esx_host_name "cd /vmfs/volumes/datastore/ ; tar xf - "

 

 

 

 

 

Good luck,

 

 

-KjB

 

 

vExpert/VCP/VCAP vmwise.com / @vmwise -KjB
ABailward Lurker
ABailward
3 posts since
Jun 30, 2008
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5. Jul 3, 2008 10:48 AM in response to: kjb007
Re: Mount an ESX VMDK file from Other system?

 

Hi there....

 

 

 

 

 

This is moving a vmdk off the esx server for distribution out to the field.  If (when) tweaks to the image are needed we need to run some cleanup steps (removing session history and the like).

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks all for the pointers, however I can't get vmware-mount (windows or linux version) to mount an image   The closest I get is on linux where I get:

 

 

 

  1. vmware-mount filename.vmdk 5 /mnt/test/

mount: you must specify the filesystem type

Failed to mount partition 5 of disk 'filename.vmdk' on '/mnt/test/'

 

 

It will mount the first partition just fine though.  According to -p I see:

 

 

 

  1. vmware-mount -p filename.vmdk

Nr      Start       Size Type Id Sytem                  

-- -

-

-

-- -

1         63     208782 BIOS 83 Linux

2     208845   10490445 BIOS 83 Linux

3   10699290    4192965 BIOS 82 Linux swap

4   14892255   16563015 BIOS  5 Extended

5   14892318   16562952 BIOS 83 Linux

 

 

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

kjb007 Guru vExpert
kjb007
6,682 posts since
Sep 18, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
6. Jul 3, 2008 10:58 AM in response to: ABailward
Re: Mount an ESX VMDK file from Other system?

 

You can use vmware-mount.  Check these:

 

 

 

 

 

http://communities.vmware.com/message/931138

 

 

http://communities.vmware.com/message/925334

 

 

 

 

 

-KjB

 

 

vExpert/VCP/VCAP vmwise.com / @vmwise -KjB

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