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dominoforever
Contributor
Contributor

Install vSphere 4.1 - partitions

Hello,

I have to migrate my ESX hosts 3.5u4 to vSphere 4.1, I would like to ask you what is the best partitions for the local storage?

I found the best practices on vmware website :

The /, swap, and all the optional partitions are stored on a virtual disk called esxconsole-<UUID>.vmdk. Set a size minimum of 8GB for this virtual disk.

Note: For /var/log, VMware recommends a separate partition to prevent unexpected disk space constraints due to extensive logging.

I found this too :

So how do paritions apply to ESX 4.1 hosts? During an ESX 4.x installation, three physical partitions are created:

  • The /boot partition holds  the files that are needed to boot ESX; there are no options for user to  change during installation and it is hidden. The /boot partition must be  on the disk that the BIOS boots from.  In VMware 4.1, the /boot  partition requires 1100 MB.
  • The Vmkcore partition – is  the core dump partition where ESX will write info about a system crash;  it is hidden during installation and can not be modified. In VMware 4.1,  the Vmkcore partition is 110 MB.
  • VMFS – all the rest of the local storage is a VMFS 3 datastore. This is an extended partition. (VMFS is the VMware File System

The Service Console used for the ESX Server command-line management  interface is located in the VMFS filesystem as a virtual disk named esxconsole.vmdk.  (This virtual disk can be stored on a SAN LUN or different block device  than the system disk, as long as it has been partitioned and formatted  as VMFS.)  As a best practice, the esxconsole.vmdk should not be  situated on a shared SAN LUN.

  • The files that make up the Service Console are found in the root (   /  ) partition of esxconsole.vmdk. The root partition contains the ESX  operating system and services, and is accessible through the Service  Console. The size of the esxconsole.vmdk varies between deployments, and  a minimum requirement is approximately 8GB. The root partition also  contains installed third-party add-on services or applications.  All  other Service Console partitions attach to a mount point under the root  partition.
  • There are other partitions in the Service Console disk:
  • The swap partition holds the  Service Console swap file. This virtual disk should be at least twice  size of Service Console memory, and can be from 600MB to 1600 MB in  size.
  • The /var/log partition  stores the logs created by the Service Console during operations. The  ESX graphic and text installers create this as a 2000MB partition by  default. You can adjust the size and mount point for this partition or  directory  n the Advanced settings of the installer. For example, Scott  Lowe recommends using /var as the mount point, so that space consumed in /var directory when you do patch management is not consumed out of the root partition.
  • The /opt partition is an  optional partition that can be used to hold additional vSphere  components and third party products that can be installed. By making the  /opt partition a mount point, you can separate the files from /opt from the space allocated in the / partition.
  • The /home partition is an optional partition that can be used for storage by individual users.
  • The /tmp partition is an optional partition that can be used to store temporary files.
  • The /usr partition is an optional partition that can be used to store user programs and data.

What for local partition do you advise me ?

Kind regards

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5 Replies
idle-jam
Immortal
Immortal

It is advisable that you go to ESXi version, with ESXi version you do not need to have the headache do define your own custom partition layout as it has being fixed.

also with ESXi version, it would be much easier to upgrade as there is no longer any new ESX release.

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bulletprooffool
Champion
Champion

Idle-Jam is correct - no pooint bothering to upgrade to a version of VMware that is going to be end-of-lifed.

Personally, I use the defaults and I alwys install to USB key. This means that when upgrade time comes, I can (if I like) pull the USB key and build a new one, which I can add to the server - in the instance that my new server fails, I have a quick roll-back.

ESX no longer has any advantages over ESXi (except in extremely rare circumstances where people have tailored SC apps)

Good luck

One day I will virtualise myself . . .
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Wozzer
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

With ESX 4.1 you have correctly defined there will be 3 partitions:

1100MB Boot partition, 110MB VMkernel core dump partition, and the rest of the space on your drive will be created as an extended partition formatted as a VMFS.

If you have a 72GB local drive then your extended VMFS partition is going to be approximately 70GB. The esxconsole.vmdk should be at least 8GB, and will reside on this 3rd partition. So you'd be left with 62GB 'spare' local drive space.

Whether you want to create a larger esxconsole.vmdk to accomodate more logs, data files or a larger swap partition depends on how you want to utilise your 'spare' local space. This is what is on the esxconsole.vmdk:

5GB root partition

2GB log partition

600MB swap partition

rest of space as an extended partition

The Service Console can be configured with 800MB of memory, which means the swap partition ought to be double that, at 1.6GB. I personally would want at least enough space on the esxconsole.vmdk to accomodate the 1.6GB swap partition just in case I need it in the future. VMware would also suggest allowing for more log space. So I would suggest you want 9GB minimum for esxconsole.vmdk. Which means the overall local drive space for installing ESX 4.1 should be 10.2GB (why not round it up to 11 or 12GB or more if the local disks are big enough - most VMware features require shared storage for the VM's, so much local storage becomes unused anyway).

Ian Worrall
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dominoforever
Contributor
Contributor

In the ESX Installation guide, they describes to create /boot, swap and / with a script and some optional partitions like /home, /tmp, /usr and /var/log

Do you advise me to keep the standard partition for ESX?

What did you choose for your installation?

Thanks

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

although we are rolling to ESXi, we used to be 100% ESX.  Below is a snip from our ks.cfg for our partitions, maybe it will help.

#############################################################
# Clear partitions
clearpart --firstdisk --overwritevmfs
##############################################################
#Partitioning
part /boot --fstype=ext3 --size=1100 --onfirstdisk
part <esxname>-local --fstype=vmfs3 --size=17146 --grow --onfirstdisk
part None --fstype=vmkcore --size=180 --onfirstdisk
##############################################################
# Create the vmdk on the cos vmfs partition.
virtualdisk cos --size=15946 --onvmfs=<esxname>-local
###########################################################
# Partition the virtual disk
part / --fstype=ext3 --size=5120 --grow --onvirtualdisk=cos
part swap --fstype=swap --size=1600 --onvirtualdisk=cos
part /var --fstype=ext3 --size=4096 --onvirtualdisk=cos
part /home --fstype=ext3 --size=2048 --onvirtualdisk=cos
part /tmp --fstype=ext3 --size=1024 --onvirtualdisk=cos
part /opt --fstype=ext3 --size=2048 --onvirtualdisk=cos
#########################################################

...also, a good guide is below

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/05/27/partitioning-your-esx-host-part-ii/

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