1. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 1 Virtualization Technologies and Mounting VMware Virtual Disks CS526 Class Project Dinesh Shenoy

2. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 2 What is Virtualization ? Virtualization is an abstraction layer that decouples the physical hardware from the operating system thereby allowing multiple virtual machines, with heterogeneous operating systems to run in isolation, side- by-side on the same physical machine.

3. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 3 Benefits of Virtualization Partitioning Isolation Encapsulation Consolidation Standardization Ease of Testing Mobility

4. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 4 Drawbacks of Virtualization Concentration Risk Cost Performance Penalty Hardware Support Software Licensing

5. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 5 Xen vs. VMware http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/performance.html Xen requires kernel modification (no changed on Application Binary Interface) paravirtualization vs. full virtualization http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/performance.html IO intenstive applicationsCPU intensive appl.

6. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 6 Project Scope Research ways to mount a virtual disk in a Linux / Windows host file system as a mounted directory / separate drive without needing to connect to the virtual disk from within a virtual machine.

7. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 7 Project Work Installed ESX Server which supports virtual mounts. Create multiple virtual machines. Research various ways to mount related virtual disks on host machine. - VMware DiskMount Utility (Windows) - vmfs-mount.pl script (Linux)

8. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 8 VMware DiskMount Utility The VMware DiskMount Utility allows you to mount an ‘unused’ virtual disk in a Windows host file system as a separate drive without needing to connect to the virtual disk from within a virtual machine. You can mount specific volumes of a virtual disk if the virtual disk is partitioned.

9. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 9 VMware-mount.pl (Linux) Usage: /usr/bin/vmware-mount.pl -p : Print the partition table disk : Name of the Virtual Hard Disk file partition : Number of the partition [-t type] : Partition type [-o options]: Partition mount options(s) mount-point : Directory where to mount the partition

10. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 10 VMware-mount.pl (sample) [root@VM-EAS mnt]# vmware-mount.pl -t vmfs /root/vmhba/xpup.vmdk 1 /mnt/dshenoy -------------------------------------------- VMware for Linux - Virtual Hard Disk Mounter Version: 1.0 build-16390\nCopyright 1998 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. -- VMware Confidential -------------------------------------------- It has been reported that this program does not work correctly with 2.4+ Linux kernels in some cases, and you are currently running such a kernel. Do you really want to continue? [N] y Network Block Device driver detected. The /dev/nb0 Network Block Device is busy. Client: The partition is now mapped on the /dev/nb1 Network Block Device.

11. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 11 Project Findings Currently there is not much demand for this feature Available tools are not officially supported and hence seem to have very little documentation. There is room for improving these tools - Map disks when they are attached but suspended (Windows) - Mount specific disks rather than entire the partition

12. 5/8/2006dshenoy/ESX Server and VMFS mount utility 12 References VMWare Knowledge Base VMWare Discussion Forum VMWare Documentation http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/ne tos/xen/