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Horinius
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Installed to SD but partitions not shown

I've installed ESXi 4.1U1 to an SD card (in a Dell PowerEdge R710 server with internal SD module).

By curiosity, I want to see the partitions on the SD card but vSphere client is unable to show its partitions.  I know I could shutdown ESXi host and check the SD card partitions on a Windows computer, but that's not what I wanted and that's not the point.

So, it's just purely impossible?

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

You can see the disks and partitions in /dev/disks/

With fdisk -l you have a detailed list

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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Horinius
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

In /dev/disks/, I see a lot of "files" but I'm not sure how to "interpretate" what I see there.

"fdisk -l" is better, but we have a lot of "interpretations" to do. It would be more user-friendly if they could show SD card's partition in vSphere client as well.

Thanks

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
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A VMFS lun usally has a single partitions.

You see partition (under /dev/disks) by the :n (where n is the partition number).

ESXi use two boot banks that are FAT formatted.

See also: http://www.vcritical.com/2009/08/if-vmware-esxi-4-is-so-small-why-is-it-so-big/

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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Horinius
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

OK, thanks for the article.  That might also answer my other questions in the other discussion.

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dkleeman2
Contributor
Contributor

Here are some rather late answers to this question under ESXi 5.0.

esxcli can list all your storage devices:

~ # esxcli storage core device list

naa.60060e80105d5ab005705e3b00000001
   Display Name: HITACHI iSCSI Disk (naa.60060e80105d5ab005705e3b00000001)
   Has Settable Display Name: true
   Size: 4505600
   Device Type: Direct-Access
   Multipath Plugin: NMP
   Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.60060e80105d5ab005705e3b00000001
   Vendor: HITACHI
   Model: DF600F
   Revision: 0000
   SCSI Level: 4
   Is Pseudo: false
   Status: on
   Is RDM Capable: true
   Is Local: false
   Is Removable: false
   Is SSD: false
   Is Offline: false
   Is Perennially Reserved: false
   Thin Provisioning Status: yes
   Attached Filters: VAAI_FILTER
   VAAI Status: supported
   Other UIDs: vml.020001000060060e80105d5ab005705e3b00000001444636303046


naa.600508b1001c04cc66656266bf94f950
   Display Name: HP Serial Attached SCSI Disk (naa.600508b1001c04cc66656266bf94f950)
   Has Settable Display Name: true
   Size: 4769187
   Device Type: Direct-Access
   Multipath Plugin: NMP
   Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600508b1001c04cc66656266bf94f950
   Vendor: HP
   Model: LOGICAL VOLUME
   Revision: 5.70
   SCSI Level: 5
   Is Pseudo: false
   Status: degraded
   Is RDM Capable: true
   Is Local: false
   Is Removable: false
   Is SSD: false
   Is Offline: false
   Is Perennially Reserved: false
   Thin Provisioning Status: unknown
   Attached Filters:
   VAAI Status: unknown
   Other UIDs: vml.0200010000600508b1001c04cc66656266bf94f9504c4f47494341

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
   Thin Provisioning Status: unknown
   Attached Filters:
   VAAI Status: unsupported
   Other UIDs: vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30

In this example the first device is a LUN on a SAN, the second device is the local disk and the last item is clearly the SD Card ("Model: Flash Reader"). The 'Other UIDs' will appear in the device listing.
  
You can list the disk devices by listing /vmfs/devices/disks/:

~ # ls -lh /vmfs/devices/disks/
-rw-------    1 root     root         3.7G Aug 28 15:28 mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
-rw-------    1 root     root         4.0M Aug 28 15:28 mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:1
-rw-------    1 root     root       250.0M Aug 28 15:28 mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:5
-rw-------    1 root     root       250.0M Aug 28 15:28 mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:6
-rw-------    1 root     root       110.0M Aug 28 15:28 mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:7
-rw-------    1 root     root       286.0M Aug 28 15:28 mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:8
-rw-------    1 root     root         4.5T Aug 28 15:28 naa.600508b1001c04cc66656266bf94f950
-rw-------    1 root     root         4.5T Aug 28 15:28 naa.600508b1001c04cc66656266bf94f950:1
-rw-------    1 root     root         4.3T Aug 28 15:28 naa.60060e80105d5ab005705e3b00000001
-rw-------    1 root     root         4.3T Aug 28 15:28 naa.60060e80105d5ab005705e3b00000001:1
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           20 Aug 28 15:28 vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30 -> mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           22 Aug 28 15:28 vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:1 -> mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:1
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           22 Aug 28 15:28 vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:5 -> mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:5
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           22 Aug 28 15:28 vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:6 -> mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:6
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           22 Aug 28 15:28 vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:7 -> mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:7
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           22 Aug 28 15:28 vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:8 -> mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:8
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           36 Aug 28 15:28 vml.0200010000600508b1001c04cc66656266bf94f9504c4f47494341 -> naa.600508b1001c04cc66656266bf94f950
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           38 Aug 28 15:28 vml.0200010000600508b1001c04cc66656266bf94f9504c4f47494341:1 -> naa.600508b1001c04cc66656266bf94f950:1
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           36 Aug 28 15:28 vml.020001000060060e80105d5ab005705e3b00000001444636303046 -> naa.60060e80105d5ab005705e3b00000001
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           38 Aug 28 15:28 vml.020001000060060e80105d5ab005705e3b00000001444636303046:1 -> naa.60060e80105d5ab005705e3b00000001:1

The partitions on the SD card are the first six lines and you can see their sizes. The device (mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0) will not appear in the GUI, which makes working out if you are running on a flash card or not quite challenging.

Daniel

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