SYNOPSIS
vmkfstools OPTIONS
vmkfstools OPTIONS PARTITION
vmkfstools OPTIONS DEVICE
vmkfstools OPTIONS PATH

Click here to go straight to EXAMPLES

COPYRIGHT
VMware ESX Server is Copyright 2000-2006 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

DESCRIPTION
vmkfstools is a program for creating and manipulating virtual disks, file systems, logical volumes and physical storage devices on the VMware ESX Server. It supports the creation of a VMware ESX Server File System (VMFS) on a partition of a disk, and the management of files (such as virtual disks) stored on VMFS.

OPTIONS is one or more command-line options that specify the operation. The file or VMFS file system being manipulated may be specified after the options by a relative or absolute file path name in the /vmfs hierarchy.

The PARTITION argument is used for specifying partitions, and should be of the form vmhbaA:T:L:P where A, T, L and P are integers representing adapter, target, LUN and partition respectively. The partition digit must be greater than zero. For example, vmhba0:2:3:1 refers to the first partition on LUN 3, target 2, HBA 0.

The DEVICE argument is used for specifying devices, and should be a path name beginning with /vmfs/devices , which is the mount point of the device file system. There are sub-mounts for each device class. For example, /vmfs/devices/disks for local or SAN-based disks, /vmfs/devices/lvm for VMKernel logical volumes, /vmfs/devices/generic for generic SCSI devices like tape drives, etc.

The PATH argument is used for specifying a VMFS file system or file, and should be an absolute or relative path that names a directory or a file under /vmfs For example, a VMFS file system could be specified via a path such as: Lp /vmfs/volumes/<file_system_UUID> or /vmfs/volumes/<file_system_label> Lp A VMFS file would be specified via a path such as: Lp /vmfs/volumes/<file_system_label|file_system_UUID>/[dir]/myDisk.vmdk or myDisk.vmdk Lp if the current working directory is the parent directory of myDisk.vmdk.

FILE SYSTEM OPTIONS
The long and short forms of options, shown here listed together, are equivalent.

-C , -createfs vmfs3

-b , -blocksize #[mMkK]

-S , -setfsname fsName
Create a VMFS file system on the specified partition,
e.g. vmhba1:0:0:1. The partition becomes the file system's head
partition. The file block size can be specified via the '-b'
option. The default file block size is 1MB. The file block size
must be either 1MB, 2MB, 4MB or 8MB. In ESX Server 3, VMFS-2 file
systems are read-only in that users will not be allowed to create
or modify them. VMFS-3 file systems will not be accessible from
ESX 2.x hosts.

The -S option sets the label of the VMFS file system, and can only
be used in conjunction with the '-C' option. This label can then
be used to specify a VMFS file system in subsequent vmkfstools
commands or in a virtual machine configuration file. The label
will also appear in a listing produced by 'ls -l /vmfs/volumes'
as a symbolic link to the VMFS file system. VMFS labels can be up
to 128 characters long. They cannot contain leading or trailing
spaces. After creating the file system, the label can be changed
using the command 'ln -sf /vmfs/volumes/<FS UUID>
/vmfs/volumes/<New label>'.

-Z , -extendfs extension-partition
Extend an existing VMFS-3 file system with the specified head
partition by adding another partition designated by
'extension-partition'. A VMFS-3 file system can have at most 32
partitions. This option will not work on VMFS-2 file systems as
they are read-only in ESX Server 3.

-P , -queryfs

-h , -human-readable
List the attributes of a VMFS file system when used on any file or
directory of a VMFS file system. It lists the VMFS version number,
the number of partitions constituting the specified VMFS file
system, the file system label (if any), file system UUID,
available space, and a listing of the device names of all the
partitions constituting the file system. If partitions backing
VMFS file system go offline then the number of partitions and
available space reported change accordingly. The 'h' option
causes sizes to be printed in human-readable format (such as 5k,
12.1M, or 2.1G).

FILE SYSTEM UPGRADE OPTIONS
VMFS-2 to VMFS-3 file system upgrade is a two step process. Before file system upgrade can begin the `vmfs2` and `vmfs3` drivers must be unloaded and the auxiliary file system driver, `fsaux`, should be loaded. The first step of upgrade uses the `-T` option. Once the first step completes, the auxiliary file system driver, `fsaux`, must be unloaded and the `vmfs2` and `vmfs3` drivers reloaded. The second step of file system upgrade makes use of the `-u` option.

-T , -tovmfs3

-x , -upgradetype [zeroedthick|eagerzeroedthick|thin]
Converts a VMFS-2 file system to VMFS-3 format, preserving all files
on the file system. Only file systems with block size 8MB or less
can be converted. The conversion is in-place and the auxiliary file
system driver (`fsaux`) module must be loaded. ESX Server will
try to ensure that no local process or remote ESX Server is currently
accessing the VMFS file system to be converted. The conversion is a
one-way operation and once the VMFS-2 file system is converted to
VMFS-3 file system, it cannot be rolled back to VMFS-2. The `-x
thin` option results in the conversion of VMFS-2 files into
thin-provisioned VMFS-3 files (as opposed to thick-provisioned
files). File blocks that are part of a 'thick' file, but were
never written to, are discarded from the file to enable storage
overcommitment. The default upgrade option, `-x zeroedthick`,
retains the properties of 'thick' files across the upgrade.
The `-x eagerzeroedthick` option eagerly zeroes out previously
unwritten blocks. Note that the upgrade process may run much longer
when invoked with the `-x eagerzeroedthick` option, as opposed
to the other two options.

-u , -upgradefinish /vmfs/volumes/<file system label|file system UUID>
Once the first step of file system upgrade has completed (using
`-T`), the `vmfs2` and `vmfs3` modules must be reloaded and
the `-u` option used to complete the upgrade.

VIRTUAL DISK OPTIONS
-c , -createvirtualdisk #[gGmMkK]

-a , -adaptertype [buslogic|lsilogic] srcFile

-d , -diskformat [zeroedthick|eagerzeroedthick|thick|thin]
Create a virtual disk with the specified size on the VMFS file
system. The size is specified in bytes by default, but can be
specified in kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes by adding a suffix
of 'k', 'm', or 'g' respectively. The 'adaptertype' option
allows users to indicate which device driver should be used to
communicate with the virtual disk. See the `SUPPORTED DISK
FORMATS` section for details on the disk formats supported by
the '-d' option. The default disk format is 'zeroedthick'. The
`-d eagerzeroedthick` option is used to create `thick` virtual
disk with zeroed out contents.

-U , -deletevirtualdisk
Delete files associated with the specified virtual disk.

-E , -renamevirtualdisk srcDisk
Rename files associated with a specified virtual disk to the
specified name.

-i , -clonevirtualdisk srcDisk

-d , -diskformat [rdm:<device>|rdmp:<device>|raw:<device>|thin|2gbsparse]
Create a copy of a virtual disk or raw disk. The copy will be in
the specified disk format. See the `SUPPORTED DISK FORMATS'
section for details on the disk formats supported by the '-d'
option. To clone ESX REDO logs while preserving their hierarchy, use
the Service Console command cp.

-e , -exportvirtualdisk dstDisk
This operation is deprecated. Use '-i srcDisk -d 2gbsparse' to
achieve what it used to.

-X , -extendvirtualdisk #[gGmMkK]
Extend the specified VMFS virtual disk to the specified length. This
command is useful for extending the size of a virtual disk
allocated to a virtual machine after the virtual machine has been
created. However, this command requires that the guest operating
system has some capability for recognizing the new size of the
virtual disk and taking advantage of this new size (e.g. by
updating the file system on the virtual disk to take advantage of
the extra space).

-M , -migratevirtualdisk
Migrate an ESX2 virtual disk to an ESX3 virtual disk.

-r , -createrdm /vmfs/devices/disks/...
Map a raw disk to a file on a VMFS file system. Once the mapping
is established, it can be used to access the raw disk like a
normal VMFS virtual disk. The 'file length' of the mapping is
the same as the size of the raw disk that it points to.

-q , -queryrdm
List the attributes of a raw disk mapping. When used with a
'rdm:<device>' or 'raw:<device>' specification, it prints out the
vmhba name of the raw disk corresponding to the mapping
referenced by the <device>. It also prints out identification
information for the raw disk (if any).

z , -createrdmpassthru /vmfs/devices/disks/...
Map a passthrough raw disk to a file on a VMFS file system. This
allows a virtual machine to bypass the VMKernel SCSI command
filtering layer done for VMFS virtual disks. Once the mapping is
established, it can be used to access the passthrough raw disk
like a normal VMFS virtual disk.

-Q , -createrawdevice /vmfs/devices/generic/...
Create a raw device descriptor file on a VMFS file system. This
should only be used for generic SCSI devices like tape drives.

-v , -verbose #
This option is ignored for the queryrdm option. Setting the
verbosity level will list additional information for the virtual disk
configuration.

-g , -geometry
Get the geometry information (cylinders, heads, sectors) of a
virtual disk.

-w , -writezeros
Initialize the virtual disk with zeros. Any existing data on virtual
disk is lost.

-j , -inflatedisk
Convert a `thin` virtual disk to `thick` with the additional
guarantee that any data on `thin` disk is preserved and any blocks
that were not allocated get allocated and zeroed out.

SUPPORTED DISK FORMATS
These are the arguments that can be passed to the '-d' option for the '-c' (create virtual disk) and '-i' (clone virtual disk) operations.

`zeroedthick`
This is the default option when creating new virtual disks.
A zeroed thick disk has all space allocated at creation
time, and this space is wiped clean of any previous contents on the
physical media.

`eagerzeroedthick`
An eager zeroed thick disk has all space allocated and zeroed out at
creation time. Such disks may take longer time during creation
compared to other disk formats.

`thick`
A thick disk has all space allocated at creation time. This
space may contain stale data as it exists on the physical media. Lp `thin`
Space required for thin-provisioned virtual disk is allocated and
zeroed on demand as opposed to upon creation.

`rdm`
Virtual compatibility mode raw disk mapping.

`rdmp`
Physical compatibility mode (pass-through) raw disk mapping.

`raw`
Raw device.

`2gbsparse`
A sparse disk with 2GB maximum extent size. Disks in this format
can be used with other VMware products.

DEVICE OPTIONS
-s , -scan adapterName
Scan a specified adapter for devices and/or LUNs. This option is
especially useful for adapters which are connected to storage area
networks (SANs). If a new device or LUN becomes accessible via the
adapter, ESX Server will register this new device or LUN and
make it usable by virtual machines. If an existing device or LUN
is not being used and now appears to be gone, it will be removed from
ESX Server data structures and will no longer be accessible to
virtual machines.

-L , -lock [reserve|release|lunreset|targetreset|busreset] /vmfs/devices/disks/... Manage SCSI reservations on physical targets or LUNs. These
commands can interrupt the operations of other servers on a storage
area network (SAN), so they should be used with great caution. The
`reserve` command will reserve the specified raw disk.
After the reservation, other servers will get a SCSI reservation
conflict if they attempt to access that disk, but the server that did
the reservation will be able to access the disk normally. The
`release` command will release the reservation on the specified
disk. Other servers will be able to access the disk again. The
`lunreset` command resets a single LUN only instead of all
the LUNs attached to a target. The `targetreset` and `busreset`
command will reset target and bus respectively causing SCSI
reservations to be dropped. This option is potentially disruptive to
all servers sharing the storage and is only meant to be used
in the context of Clustering.

EXAMPLES
vmkfstools -C vmfs3 -b 1m -S myVMFS vmhba1:3:0:1

Creates a new VMFS-3 file system using VMKFSTOOLS, with label `myVMFS` on the 1st partition of target 3 and LUN 0 of vmhba adapter 1. The file block size is 1MB.

vmkfstools -Z vmhba0:1:2:4 vmhba1:3:0:1

Extends the newly created file system using VMKFSTOOLS, by adding the 4th partition of target 1 and LUN 2 of vmhba adapter 0. As a result, the file system will span two partitions - vmhba1:3:0:1 and vmhba0:1:2:4. Here, vmhba1:3:0:1 is the name of the head partition of the file system that is to be extended.

vmkfstools -c 2048m /vmfs/volumes/myVMFS/myOS.vmdk

Creates a 2GB VMFS virtual disk using VMKFSTOOLS with the name `myOS.vmdk` on the VMFS file system named `myVMFS`. This virtual disk may then be accessed by a virtual machine.

vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/templates/gold-master.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/myVMFS/myOS.vmdk

Clones the contents of a gold master virtual disk image using VMKFSTOOLS from a template repository to a virtual disk named `myOS.vmdk` on the VMFS file system called myVMFS. A virtual machine can be configured to use this virtual disk by adding the following lines to its configuration file:
scsi0:0.present = TRUE
scsi0:0.fileName = /vmfs/volumes/myVMFS/myOS.vmdk

vmkfstools -r /vmfs/devices/disks/vmhbaX:Y:Z:0 foo-rdm.vmdk

Creates a mapping file using VMKFSTOOLS, `foo-rdm.vmdk`, to the raw disk `vmhbaX:Y:Z:0`. The mapping file `foo-rdm.vmdk` is created in the current VMFS working directory, and can be used in a virtual machine in the same manner as in the previous example.

vmkfstools -s vmhba1

Scan adapter vmhba1 using VMKFSTOOLS for any new targets or LUNs and for any removed targets or LUNs