Can I write to RDM from outside of vm and if I can should I?

[mobcdi]

Forgive this very basic question about RDM's but its an feature I haven't need of before.

If I present a vm with a RDM for use e.g for FTP server storage so that whether I use the vm itself or some other tool the directory structure and content be identical e.g not a single vmdk file in 1 when viewed by some non vmware tool

If thats true, is there scope for me to add contents directly to the rdm or will permissions mean that while the files can be written the vm guest os won't be able to access them, going back to my ftp server example could I copy files from somwhere directly to the rdm and the vm guest os would be able to work with them as if they were written directly to the rdm by the guest os itself?

Michael

[a_p_]

If you want/need to access a file system from multiple systems, the important part is that the file system is built for this. VMware's VMFS is an example of such a file system, which can be accessed simultaneously from multiple ESXi hosts. If you do this with a file system that's not built for this, you will end up with file system corruption.

André

[mobcdi]

If the RDM is formatted by the guest OS for a standard linux file system and the other tool was able to read/write that would that cause problems?

[a_p_]

Yes, if you allow both systems to access/write to the file system simultaneously, this will cause file system corruption.

André