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vadm168
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

implication of having a vmdk disk following snapshot file naming convention?

Hi,

platform: ESXi 6

VM: RHEL 6

I am posting this to see if anyone encounters the similar issue or has suggestions...

We have a VM that has no snapshots listed in the snapshot manager. in the datastore, there is a vm-000001.vmdk in addition to vm.vmdk file. To me vm-000001.vmdk looks like a snapshot file. In the VM's settings, there are two disks listed: vm-000001.vmdk and vm.vmdk. Inside the VM, /dev/sda and /dev/sdb are used for different purposes. Backup attempts always fail because it complains the disk is already open. CommVault support suggests rename vm-000001.vmdk to a different name because CommVault thinks there is already a snapshot for the VM hence it fails. Before going through vmdk rename process, is there anyone encounter this kind of issue?

Thanks,

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daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal

Yes, I've seen this before. The recommendation to rename the second disk is usually the best thing to do because, as you've found out, Simpana and other applications associate VMDKs with a name of that format with snapshot extents and so will barf when they run across them. But be aware if you do decide to change the name you must not only do it for the .vmdk and *-flat.vmdk, but you must hand edit the .vmdk file and update the name for the -flat.vmdk file as well, otherwise your VM will not boot.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Some thoughts in addition to what has already been said.

  • I understood that the two virtual disks are used as two separate virtual disks in the VM's settings!? Is that correct?
  • What are the .vmdk file names (please run ls -lisa from the command line)? Do both data .vmdk files have -flat.vmdk in their names?
  • The descriptor .vmdk files (the small ones) do not contain a "parentFileNameHint" entry?

In case all of the above is true, then it should be safe to rename the secondary virtual disk. To do that:

  • shut down the virtual machine
  • rename the virtual disk from the command line: vmkfstools -E vm-000001.vmdk vm_1.vmdk
  • edit the VM's configuration (.vmx) file and replace vm-000001.vmdk with vm_1.vmdk
  • reload the VM: see step 2 in https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1026043

André

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