get disk partitions

[fordian]

Hello,

Could you tell me , using perl, how can I have all partitions from an ESX server 3.5 and retrieve informations about each partitions (start sector, partition type, ... ) ?

Thank you

Dominic

[lamw · Accepted solution]

I've heard from few VMware folks that this information is not explicitly clear when looking for partition information and their respective mount points such as /,/boot,/tmp, etc and I thought I take a look at the storageSystem to see if any correlations can be made with some of the available functions. Specifically the RetrieveDiskPartitionInfo() looked promising but I was not able to figure out a way to extract the device path from QueryAvailableDisksForVmfs() which is one of the required parameters. I ended up manually substituting the devicePath using information from the classic Service Console such as "vdf -h" and "fdisk -l".

vdf -h output:

[root@esx-1 root]# vdf -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2     7.9G  1.3G  6.2G  18% /
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1     244M   27M  204M  12% /boot
/dev/cciss/c0d0p7     2.0G  249M  1.7G  13% /home
none                  391M     0  391M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/cciss/c0d0p8     2.0G   33M  1.9G   2% /tmp
/dev/cciss/c0d0p6     4.0G  361M  3.4G  10% /var
/vmfs/devices         2.6T     0  2.6T   0% /vmfs/devices
/vmfs/volumes/48e16ed0-420158d5-5601-00215acaa2b2
                      152G  118G   34G  77% /vmfs/volumes/<some_vmfs_volume1>
/vmfs/volumes/48e1a4a6-3b55e69b-02a9-001f29c948e2
                      151G  100G   50G  66% /vmfs/volumes/<some_vmfs_volume2>
/vmfs/volumes/48e1b819-3443974c-03c4-001f29c948e2
                      150G  117G   32G  78% /vmfs/volumes/<some_vmfs_volume3>
/vmfs/volumes/48e1cd81-81223593-6cd8-00215acaa2b2
                      124G   86G   38G  69% /vmfs/volumes/<some_vmfs_volume4>
/vmfs/volumes/4913e014-62bc3b90-da2e-001f29c948f8
                       50G  521M   49G   1% /vmfs/volumes/<some_vmfs_volume5>
/vmfs/volumes/495e986b-b61cc1d6-27b1-00215ab08a79
                      153G  114G   38G  74% /vmfs/volumes/<some_vmfs_volume6>
/vmfs/volumes/d32c5a97-e039bdbf
                      1.3T  739G  609G  54% /vmfs/volumes/<some_vmfs_volume7>

fdisk -l output:

[root@esx-1 root]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 134.2 GB, 134217728000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 16317 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1             1     16317 131066238+  fb  Unknown

Disk /dev/sdb: 162.1 GB, 162135015424 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19711 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1             1     19711 158328543+  fb  Unknown

Disk /dev/sdc: 163.2 GB, 163208757248 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19842 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1             1     19842 159380801   fb  Unknown

Disk /dev/sdd: 164.2 GB, 164282499072 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19972 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdd1             1     19972 160425026   fb  Unknown

Disk /dev/sde: 165.3 GB, 165356240896 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20103 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sde1             1     20103 161477283+  fb  Unknown

Disk /dev/sdf: 64.4 GB, 64424509440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7832 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdf1             1      7832  62910508+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdg: 17.1 GB, 17179869184 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2088 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdg1             1      2088  16771796   fb  Unknown

Disk /dev/cciss/c0d0: 73.3 GB, 73372631040 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 8920 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

           Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1   *         1        32    257008+  83  Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2            33      1076   8385930   83  Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p3          1077      1285   1678792+  82  Linux swap
/dev/cciss/c0d0p4          1286      8920  61328137+   f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/cciss/c0d0p5          1286      7863  52837753+  fb  Unknown
/dev/cciss/c0d0p6          7864      8385   4192933+  83  Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p7          8386      8646   2096451   83  Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p8          8647      8907   2096451   83  Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p9          8908      8920    104391   fc  Unknown

This information will differ based on the type of system, but you'll want to pass in the device path and in our example, will use /dev/cciss/c0d0 and pay close attention from the output from "vdf -h" and you'll see how to correlate between the start,end sectors and the partition types.

Example execution of queryDiskParition.pl script:

[vi-admin@vima ~]$ ./queryDiskParition.pl --server <esx_erver> --device /dev/cciss/c0d0
partition: 1
type: linuxNative
startSector: 63
endSector: 514079
isLogical: NO
size: 250.98 MB

partition: 2
type: linuxNative
startSector: 514080
endSector: 17285939
isLogical: NO
size: 8.00 GB

partition: 3
type: linuxSwap
startSector: 17285940
endSector: 20643524
isLogical: NO
size: 1.60 GB

partition: 4
type: extended
startSector: 20643525
endSector: 143299799
isLogical: NO
size: 58.49 GB

partition: 5
type: vmfs
startSector: 20643588
endSector: 126319094
isLogical: YES
size: 50.39 GB

partition: 6
type: linuxNative
startSector: 126319158
endSector: 134705024
isLogical: YES
size: 4.00 GB

partition: 7
type: linuxNative
startSector: 134705088
endSector: 138897989
isLogical: YES
size: 2.00 GB

partition: 8
type: linuxNative
startSector: 138898053
endSector: 143090954
isLogical: YES
size: 2.00 GB

partition: 9
type: vmkDiagnostic
startSector: 143091018
endSector: 143299799
isLogical: YES
size: 101.94 MB

Total size: 68.33 GB

As you can see you can slowly map back the partitions id from the script output back to either output from the Service Console. To retrieve the size of the each partition, you'll want to take subtract the endSector from startSecotr and multiply by 512 (512-byte sectors).

The partition type was not well documented or documented at all in VI SDK 2.5 but is slightly documented in vSphere SDK 4.0

The Linux related partitions such as /,/boot,/tmp,etc. are defined as linuxNative, you can see that the Service Console swap is defined as linuxSwap and the vmkcore dump is defined as vmkDiagnostic and VMFS partitions are just vmfs. You'll see that the information here is useful but you won't find any mappings to say partition1 = /boot or anything like that.

Again, I haven't figured out a way to extract all disk devices, so you'll need to manually provide that as an input.

Attached is the script and this will work on both VI SDK 2.5 and vSphere SDK 4.0

=========================================================================

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[fordian]

Thank you for all your informations.

Dominic

[lamw]

np. Don't forget to award correct or helpful points

=========================================================================

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[fordian]

Hello,

Finally instead of using /dev I use /vmfs/devices/disks/vmhbaA:T:L:0.

I found all luns for each hbas and use your code to find partition informations for all available partitions on the ESX host.

Thank you for your help

Dominic

[lamw]

If that's the case, I can probably re-write the script to automatically extract all vmhbaA:T:L:0 without having to specify it. I'll need to find some time and test this out

=========================================================================

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[Ashwin89]

Looking from this information is that possible to get allocated(occupied) sector count for disk?