Installation of ESXi on SDCard or Harddisk

[adilbwsvmware]

Hi,

I have installed vmware esxi 5.1 on a system that has SDCard and Raid1 disks. I have done the installation on SDCard but how do i find out to confirm the host installation is done on SDCard not on raid hard disk.

thanks,

bws

[JarryG]

Log in to ESXi (console, or ssh) and have a look around a little (ls, df, du, etc 🙂

Of course there are many other possibilities, but I grew up on unix terminals so I personally prefer command line...

[a_p_]

Another option is to use the vSphere Client. With the host selected in the inventory, click Configuration -> Storage and open the datastore's properties. You will either see multiple partitions on the disk (the ESXi is installed on disk) or just a single VMFS partition, in which case the installation is not on disk (i.e. on SD).

André

[adilbwsvmware]

a.p., I dont get SDCard listed in the storage!

[a_p_]

That's why you want to check the datastore's properties. The datastore is located on the disks and if the VMFS partition is the only partition on the disks, then the Hypervisor is installed somewhere else, e.g. the SD card.

André

[Rubeck]

André's approach is definitely the easiest one in your case.... but you can ofc do it the hard way too..

Find the UUID of the /bootbank

~ # ls -l /bootbank

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            49 Jul 17 12:31 /bootbank -> /vmfs/volumes/cc178eeb-e755d2ec-cb44-d07ec0da08d7

Then do a query toward this UUID using vmkfstools to retrieve some device info.. 

~ # vmkfstools -P /vmfs/volumes/cc178eeb-e755d2ec-cb44-d07ec0da08d7

vfat-0.04 file system spanning 1 partitions.

File system label (if any):

Mode: private

Capacity 261853184 (63929 file blocks * 4096), 107872256 (26336 blocks) avail

UUID: cc178eeb-e755d2ec-cb44-d07ec0da08d7

Partitions spanned (on "disks"):

        mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:6

Is Native Snapshot Capable: NO

Now use esxcli to find some info for that device:

~ # esxcli storage core device list -d mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0

mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0

   Display Name: Local USB Direct-Access (mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0)

   Has Settable Display Name: false

   Size: 3830

   Device Type: Direct-Access

   Multipath Plugin: NMP

   Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0

   Vendor: Single

   Model: Flash Reader

   Revision: 1.00

   SCSI Level: 2

   Is Pseudo: false

   Status: on

   Is RDM Capable: false

   Is Local: true

   Is Removable: true

   Is SSD: false

   Is Offline: false

   Is Perennially Reserved: false

   Queue Full Sample Size: 0

   Queue Full Threshold: 0

   Thin Provisioning Status: unknown

   Attached Filters:

   VAAI Status: unsupported

   Other UIDs: vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30

   Is Local SAS Device: false

   Is Boot USB Device: true

~ #

/Rubeck

[djanotomus2]

Perfect! This worked like a charm for identifying local vFlash SD Card on our Dell Host.

~ # esxcli storage core device list -d mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0

mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0

   Display Name: Local USB Direct-Access (mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0)

   Has Settable Display Name: false

   Size: 4095

   Device Type: Direct-Access

   Multipath Plugin: NMP

   Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0

   Vendor: iDRAC

   Model: 111

   Revision: 0329

   SCSI Level: 2

   Is Pseudo: false

   Status: on

   Is RDM Capable: false

   Is Local: true

   Is Removable: true

   Is SSD: false

   Is Offline: false

   Is Perennially Reserved: false

   Queue Full Sample Size: 0

   Queue Full Threshold: 0

   Thin Provisioning Status: unknown

   Attached Filters:

   VAAI Status: unsupported

   Other UIDs: vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30

   Is Shared Clusterwide: false

   Is Local SAS Device: false

   Is SAS: false

   Is USB: true

   Is Boot USB Device: true

   Is Boot Device: true

   No of outstanding IOs with competing worlds: 32