snapshot chaining: CID equals parentCID

[forbes]

OK, here's the situation. I have a broken snapshot chain (thanks vRanger .... again :smileyangry: ). The VM is still up and running, however it is a critical server so I want to avoid shutting it down and cloning it. Also, it is a couple of TBs in size, so the clone would take forever and there may be space issues even if we wanted to. To further complicate things, it is comprised of around 15 disks, with around a dozen delta files each, spread across several datastores. My head is sore trying to link them all back up :smileygrin:

The parentFileNameHints do seem to connect properly, so I can work out how to match it up. However the problem is some of the CIDs equals the parentCID. So it looks something like this:

cat hostname.vmdk

CID=11111111

parent CID=ffffffff

cat hostname-000001.vmdk

CID=22222222

parent CID=11111111

cat hostname-000002.vmdk

CID=22222222

parent CID=22222222

cat hostname-000003.vmdk

CID=22222222

parent CID=33333333

2 questions:

• Can I just pick any arbitary (but unique) 8 digit hex number to replace incorrectly matching ones (making sure they chain up properly)?

• If you can, then do I need to shut the VM down and power it back on for the changes to take effect. Or can I just change them while the VM is turned on, and then try to commit the snapshot again?

Many thanks,

Forbes Guthrie

[forbes]

Just to let everyone know, I managed to resolve the issue. Having CID and ParentCID match each other wasn't such a big deal after all. There was a break in the chain somewhere and once that was fixed then everything was good.

Top Tip, although not open to the public, the VMware support guys had a great little tool that could check the integrity of the chains and find the broken link. Make things much easier

Forbes Guthrie

http://www.vReference.com