How do you see where an RDM metadata vmdk is pointing?

[benny_hauk]

I have some RDM-mapped vmdk files (should just be holding metadata, pointing to a raw lun, right?). They aren't used by any VMs and I just need a way to interrogate them to see where they are pointing.

All the commands I've used so far treats those files as if they actually contained the data in the RDM raw device, instead of just being a small stub of a file (ls, du, more, etc).

I've got VI3 and ESX2.5 hosts that can see these files, though they are all stored on VMFS2 at the moment.

Any ideas?

[frankdenneman · Accepted solution]

Benny,

Try vmkfstools -q filename.vmdk or vmkfstools --queryrdm filename.vmdk

-q is lowercase.

[benny_hauk]

Thanks - that did it for me. I ought to add that it seems the '-q' (and the '--queryrdm') are only available on ESX3, not ESX 2.5. However, you can execute this command from ESX3 on a file stored in a VMFS2 filesystem, and it'll work.

[benny_hauk]

As a follow-up: if I run 'rm meta-data-file.vmdk' it won't wipe out the raw data on the SAN will it? Just the tiny little meta data file (just the VMDK pointer) right?