getting unexpected ctk-vmdks

[continuum]

I was busy troubleshooting a VM with 25 snapshots in ESXi 4.1

The vmsd was invalid and snapshotmanager displayed no snapshot.

I cleaned up the directory and removed all vmsn, ctk and vmsd-files.
I removed all ctk-enabled entries from the vmx-file.
Then I created a new snapshot and tried a "delete all"

To my surprise this did not work - the "delete all" finished in seconds and a new ctk.vmdk appeared along with a new snapshot.

Only difference in this case to my usual procedure was that I could not edit the vmdks. Normally I also clean up all the ctk-entries in the vmdk-descriptors. That was not possible in this case as ssh-access could not be enabled.

Question: why does a VM produce new ctk.vmdks when I have not enabled that in the vmx and when no backuptool like Veeam has access to the VM

[a_p_]

Did you reload the VM? E.g. remove from/add to inventory or through vim-cmd (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1026043) after editing the .vmx file?

André

[continuum]

yes - of course
Andre - do you edit the vmdks in such a case ?

[a_p_]

Sorry for the delay. I didn't have to do this manually before, so I did some tests in my lab.

I didn't need to edit the .vmdk files, I just set all the "ctkEnabled" entries in the VM's configuration to "false". I didn't do this manually by editing the .vmx file, but used the GUI ("Options" -> "General" -> "Configuration Parameters ...") to edit the VM's settings. Although the ctk entries in the .vmdk files are still there, no new ctk files are created.

Btw. if you don't have command line or SSH access, you can still download the .vmdk header files from the Datastore Browser. Just start the download and wait a few seconds until the first file (the header file) is downloaded and then cancel the download.

André

[continuum]

Hi Andre
I finally found the reason.
A Veeam appliance in SAN mode had mounted a snapshot of the chain.
The disk was set offline inisde the Veeam VM.

So after removing that snapshot from the Veeam VM I could delete the snapshots as expected.
This also explained the appearance of the unexpected ctk-files