Доступ к данным на vmfs разделе из под windows - Windowsa.top

Рассмотрим несколько способов получения доступа к данным, хранящимся на файловой системе VMFS хранилища (datastore) гипервизора ESXi (это файлы конфигурации, файлы с данными и снапшотами виртуальных машин). Статья, собственно, основана на реальной ситуации, возникшей у одного из клиентов, когда единственный продуктивный сервер с гипервизором VMware ESXi перестал загружаться.

Если не работает хост ESXi, но диски (LUNы) сервера остались целыми, вы всегда сможете скопировать файлы виртуальных машин и запустить ВМ на другом сервере (на VMware Workstation или даже Hyper-V). Классические операционные системы (Windows и Linux) по умолчанию не увидят данные на разделе с файловой системой VMFS, т.к. в них отсутствует драйвер файловой системы VMFS.

Разберем три сценария доступа к данным на файловой системе VMFS:

Содержание:

Монтирование VMFS раздела в Linux (Ubuntu)
Подключаем VMFS хранилище на новом ESXi хосте
Доступ к VMFS разделу из Windows

Монтирование VMFS раздела в Linux (Ubuntu)

Рассмотрим, как смонтировать раздел с файловой системой VMFS на компьютере с установленной ОС Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Установите пакет vmfstools в зависимости от версии файловой системы VMFS:

vmfs-tools – поддерживает VMFS 3 (ESXi 3.x, 4x) и VMFS 5 (ESXi 5.x)
vmfs6-tools – VMFS6 (в современных версиях ESXi, начиная с vSphere 6.5

В нашем примере диск был подключен к хосту ESXi 7.1, поэтому нужно установить vmfs6-tools для доступа к данным на файловой системе VMFS6:

# apt-get -y install vmfs6-tools

Создайте каталог для монтирования:

# mkdir /mnt/vmfs

Определите имя диск и раздела с VMFS:

# fdisk -l

В нашем примере видно, что на диске /dev/sdb есть раздел sdb1 с файловой системой VMware VMFS.

fdisk определить vmfs раздел на диске из консоли linux

Важно. Для просмотра таблицы разделов GPT на дисках VMFS размером более 2 TB вместо fdisk использовать команду parted:

parted -l

Чтобы смонтировать этот VMFS раздел в Linux, выполните команду:

# sudo vmfs6-fuse /dev/sdb1 /mnt/vmfs

Команда вернула что на указанном разделе находится файловая система VMFS6 и смонтировала его в указанный каталог.

Файлы виртуальных машин на VMFS диске доступны вам на чтение (read-only) и вы можете скопировать их или быстро запустить в VMware Player/Workstation.

доступ к vmfs datastore на чтение из linux

Если при монтировании появилась ошибка

VMFS Unsupported version 5

Unable to openfilesystem

Значит, нужно установить vmfs-tools, который поддерживает VMFS3 и VMFS5:

# apt-get install vmfs-tools

Осталось смонтировать раздел диска с хранилищем VMFS:

#vmfs-fuse /dev/sdb1 /mnt/vmfs

Подключаем VMFS хранилище на новом ESXi хосте

Выше мы рассмотрели, как с помощью сторонних драйверов смонтировать VMFS в Linux или Windows. Однако самый универсальный способ открыть данные на VMFS разделе – просто подключить его на новом ESXi сервере (вы можете развернуть его менее чем за час). На мой взгляд, это самый простой способ переподключить как физический жёсткий диск, так и LUN с устройства хранения (через FC или iSCSI).

Итак, как подключить существующее VMFS хранилище на новом ESXi хосте без его форматирования.

Подключитесь к новому серверу ESXi (в этом примере это ESXi 6.7) с помощью веб клиента vSphere;
Подключите диск к новому серверу и выполните Storage rescan (если ваша VMFS находится на iSCSI LUN, подключите его согласно инструкции);
Перейдите на вкладку Devices, найдите ваш LUN в списке. Убедитесь, что Esxi видит там раздел VMFS;

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Подключитесь к консоли хоста ESXi через SSH и выполните команду:
vmkfstools -V
Эта команда должна найти доступные VMFS хранилища на дисках и смонтировать их;
Откройте vSphere Client и убедитесь, что ваше VMFS хранилище теперь доступно, щелкните по нему и выберите Mount;

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Откройте Datastore Browser. Теперь вы можете получить доступ ко всем файлам на VMFS хранилище. Вы можете найти нужные vmx файлы, зарегистрировать их на сервере и сразу запустить критичные виртуальные машины

В предыдущих версиях ESXi можно было смонтировать существующее VMFS хранилище из графического интерфейса vSphere Client. Для этого нужно при добавлении нового VMFS хранилища нужно выбрать опцию Keep the existing signature.

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Доступ к VMFS разделу из Windows

Для доступа к данным на VMFS разделе из Windows, нам понадобится специальный открытый драйвер Open Source VMFS Driver, написанный на Java. Драйвер требует версию Java не ниже 6 и также позволяет монтировать VMFS-тома в режиме только для чтения.

Скачать Open Source VMFS Driver драйвер можно на странице https://code.google.com/archive/p/vmfs/. На данный момент проект не обновлялся с 2010 года и максимальная версия драйвера, доступная на сайте — VMFS Driver r95, которая поддерживает только VMFS 3 (< ESXi 5).

Примечание. При попытке подключения более новой версии VMFS появится ошибка No VMware File System detected.

Итак, скачайте Open Source VMFS Driver (fvmfs_r95_dist.zip ) и распакуйте его в произвольный каталог (допустим C:\vmfs);
Проверить работу java-приложения fvmfs.jar можно так:
cd \vmfs

java -jar fvmfs.jar
Далее нужно определить номер диска с хранилищем VMFS, подключенный к Windows-компьютеру. Номер диска можно узнать с помощью консоли управление дисками или diskpart. (В нашем примере подключенный диск имеет индекс 1 – Disk1. Для драйвера утилиты fvmfs, этот диск будет именоваться так: \\.\PhysicalDrive1)

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Попытаемся получить информацию о диске:
java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 info

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Предоставьте общий доступ к данному диску с помощью WebDav:
java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 webdav
Проверьте, что на клиенте запущена служба клиента WebDAV (WebClient) – если она отключена, ее нужно запустить.

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Подключите расшаренный диск:
net use * http://localhost:50080/vmfs
В системе должен появиться новый диск, с содержимым датастора VMFS, доступный для чтения;
Не закрывайте окно командной строки пока работаете с файлами на VMFS хранилище

Источник

Let’s look at several ways to access data stored on the datastore with the VMFS file system of the ESXi host (these are configuration files, data files, and snapshots of virtual machines) from Linux, Windows, and VMware hypervisor. Actually, this article is based on a real case of our client when a single VMware ESXi host has suddenly crushed.

If your ESXi host crashes, but the local disks (or LUNs) are still functional, you can copy the virtual machine files and run the VMs on another host (on VMware Workstation or even on Hyper-V). Common operating systems (Windows and Linux) by default won’t see data on a partition with a VMFS file system, because they don’t have a VMFS driver

Let’s consider three scenarios of accessing data on the VMFS datastore.

How to Mount VMFS File System on Linux (Ubuntu)?

Let’s look at how to mount a partition with the VMFS file system on a computer running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS installed. Install the vmfstools package depending on the version of the VMFS file system:

vmfs-tools – supports VMFS 3 (ESXi 3.x, 4x) andVMFS 5 (ESXi 5.x)
vmfs6-tools – VMFS 6 (used by default in modern versions of ESXi since vSphere 6.5)

In our example, the disk was connected to an ESXi 7.1 host, so you need to install vmfs6-tools to access data on a VMFS6 file system:

# apt-get -y install vmfs6-tools

Create a mount directory:

# mkdir /mnt/vmfs

Get the disk name and partition type:

# fdisk -l

In our example, you can see that the /dev/sdb drive has an sdb1 partition with the VMware VMFS file system.

Note. To access the GPT partition table on disks larger than 2 TB, use the parted command instead of fdisk:

# parted -l

To mount this VMFS partition on Linux, run the command:

# sudo vmfs6-fuse /dev/sdb1 /mnt/vmfs

The command returned that the specified partition contained a VMFS6 file system and mounted it to the target directory.

Virtual machine files on a VMFS disk are available for you in read-only mode and you can copy them or quickly run them with VMware Player/Workstation.

accessing vmware vm files on vmfs from ubuntu linux

An error may occur while mounting a partition:

VMFS Unsupported version 5
Unable to openfilesystem

In this case, you need to install vmfs-tools which supports VMFS3 and VMFS5:

# apt-get install vmfs-tools

It remains to mount the disk partition with VMFS 5 datastore:

#vmfs-fuse /dev/sdb1 /mnt/vmfs

Mounting VMFS Partition on a New VMware ESXi host

Above, we looked at how to mount VMFS partition using third-party VMFS drivers. However, the most universal way to access data on a VMFS data store of a failed server is to connect its disks to a new ESXi server (you can install ESXi on a new host in less than an hour). I think this is the easiest way to mount a VMFS volume from a physical hard drive or LUN on a storage array device (connected via Fiber Channel or iSCSI).

Follow the steps below to mount an existing VMFS datastore on a new ESXi host without formatting it:

Connect to the new ESXi server (ESXi 6.7 in this example) using the vSphere Web Client;
Connect the disk to the new host and perform Storage rescan (if your VMFS is located on an iSCSI LUN, you connect it according to the guide);
Go to the Devices tab, and find your LUN in the list. Make sure ESXi sees the VMFS partition there;

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Connect to the console of the ESXi host via SSH and run the command: vmkfstools -V
This command should find available VMFS partitions on disks and mount them;
Open vSphere Client and make sure your VMFS storage is now available. Click on it and select Mount;

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Open the Datastore Browser. Now you can access all files on VMFS datastore. You can find the necessary vmx files, register them on the current ESXi host, and immediately run critical virtual machines.

In previous versions of ESXi (6.5, 6.0, 5.x), it was possible to mount an existing VMFS volume from the vSphere Client GUI. To do this, select the Keep the existing signature option when adding a new VMFS datastore.

connect vmfs Keep the existing signature

Accessing VMFS Datastore from Windows

In order to mount the VMFS partition and access virtual machine files from Windows, you’ll need a special Java driver – Open Source VMFS Driver. This driver requires Java version 6 or later and allows to mount VMFS volumes in a read-only mode.

You can download Open Source VMFS Driver here: https://code.google.com/archive/p/vmfs/. This project has not been updated since 2010 and the latest version of the driver that is available on the site is VMFS Driver r95, which supports only VMFS 3 (< VMware ESXi 5.x).

Note. If you try to mount to a newer version of VMFS, you will receive an error message: No VMware File System detected.

Download Open Source VMFS Driver (fvmfs_r95_dist.zip) and extract it to any directory (e.g., C:\vmfs);
You can check the operation of the java-application fvmfs.jar as follows:
cd \vmfs java -jar fvmfs.jar
Next, you need to determine the number of the disk containing the VMFS datastore connected to your Windows computer. You can find the disk number in the Disk Management Console or using diskpart (in our example, the connected disk has the index 1 – Disk1. For fvmfs driver, this disk has the following name \\.\PhysicalDrive1);
Try to get information about this disk:
```
java -jar fvmfs.jar  \\.\PhysicalDrive1 info
```
$java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 info$

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Share this disk with WebDAV:
java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 webdav
Make sure that the WebClient service is started. If the service is disabled, run it;

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Mount the shared disk:
net use * http://localhost:50080/vmfs
A new disk containing read-only VMFS datastore will appear in Windows;
Do not close the command prompt window while working with files on the VMFS datastore.

Источник

Are you trying to access VMFS datastore from Linux, windows, and ESXi?

This guide is for you.

The datastores that you deploy on block storage devices use the native vSphere Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) format.
Here at Ibmi Media, as part of our Server Management Services, we regularly help our Customers to solve VMWare related queries.
In this context, we shall look into the steps to access VMFS datastore.

How to access VMFS Datastore from Linux, Windows, and ESXi?

To access the data stored on the VMFS database of the ESXi host, simply follow the process below.
If the ESXi host crashes, but the local disk (disks) of the server are still functional, then it is always possible to copy the virtual machine files (both data drives and configuration files) from VMFS datastore and run VM on a different server (even on VMware Workstation or Hyper-V).
The main problem is that the common operating systems (Windows and Linux) by default do not recognize the partition with the VMFS file system, because they do not have a VMFS driver.
Now let us see the different ways of accessing data on the VMFS datastore.

How to Mount VMFS file system on Linux (Ubuntu)?

First, we connect to a physical disk with the VMFS file system to the computer (server) with Ubuntu.
In order to access the data on the VMFS volume, we have to install a special third-party vmfs-tools package. This package allows accessing VMFS from non-ESXi hosts. It is possible to access data on this partition in read-only mode.
To install the package, simply execute the following command;.

$ apt-get install vmfs-tools

Next, to install package dependencies, we run the below command.

$apt-get install vmfs-tools

After the package is installed, we need to create a mount point in which the VMFS partition will be mounted:

$mkdir /mnt/vmfs

The next step is to look into the partitions on the disks. Creates a number of service partitions when installed in addition to the partition for virtual machine files (VMFS partition).
If the ESXi version is 4 or earlier, or a VMFS storage has been updated from VMFS 3 to VMFS 5, and its size doesn’t exceed 2TB, then we can display the list of disks and partitions by executing below command.

$ fdisk -l

As a result of the above command, we found VMFS partition is /dev/sdb3
Now we only have to mount a partition with the VMFS storage:

$ vmfs-fuse /dev/sdb3 /mnt/vmfs

Then list the contents of the mounted partition:

$ls -all /mnt/vmfs

Now we see all the virtual machine files on the VMFS storage that is available in read-only mode. It means that we can now copy the directories and/or individual files of the necessary virtual machines to a separate drive and run them on another ESXi host.

How to access VMFS Volume from Windows?

In order to connect the VMFS volume and access virtual machine files from Windows, we’ll need a special Java driver – Open Source VMFS Driver. This driver requires Java version 6 or later.
It allows mounting VMFS volumes in read-only mode. Follow the steps;
1. First, we download Open Source VMFS Driver (fvmfs_r95_dist.zip and unpack it to any directory (e.g., C:\vmfs).
2. Next, we can check the operation of the java-application fvmfs.jar by running the below commands;

cd \vmfs

java -jar fvmfs.jar

3. Next, we determine the number of HDDs containing VMFS storage that is connected to the Windows computer. We can find the disk number in the Disk Management Console or using diskpart (in our example, the connected disk has the index 1 – Disk1. For fvmfs driver, this disk has the following name: \\.\PhysicalDrive1).
4. Then we try to get information about this disk:

java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 info

5. After that, we share this disk with WebDAV:

java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 webdav

6. Then mount the shared disk:

net use * http://localhost:50080/vmfs

7. A new disk that contains VMFS datastore available for reading should appear in the system;
However, we don’t close the console window while working with files on the VMFS storage.

How to perform mounting an existing VMFS Datastore on a new ESXi host?

Basically, third-party VMFS drivers for Linux and Windows do not allow working with VMFS 6.0.
Therefore, the best way to access data on a VMFS partition of a failed server is to connect its disks to a new ESXi server.
The new ESXi host must correctly identify the attached VMFS datastore and then we will be able to access the files on it.
Here are the steps that we follow to connect an existing VMFS storage to a new ESXi host without formatting it:
i. First, we connect to the new ESXi server using the vSphere Web Client;
ii. Next, we connect the drive to the new server and run Storage rescan;
iii. Then we go to the Configure >> Datastores section and select Create a new datastore item;
iv. After that, we select the storage type: Disk or LUN;
v. In the list of available devices, we select the connected drive (LUN) with the VMFS storage;
vi. Then we select the connection mode. Select Keep the existing signature item;
vii. We click the Finish button.
viii. We go to the host’s storage section. Here we select the connected storage. Its contents can be displayed by clicking on the
ix. Datastore browser button;
x. Finally, now we can find the necessary vmx files, register them on the host, and immediately start the critical virtual machines.

[Need urgent assistance in fixing VMWare queries? – We are here to help you]

Источник

Перейти к содержимому

Добрый день уважаемые читатели блога pyatilistnik.org, сегодня мы разберем два простых способа получения доступа к данным, хранящимся на файловой системе хранилища (datastore) гипервизора ESXi (это файлы конфигурации, файлы с данными и снапшотами виртуальных машин). Статья, собственно, основана на реальной ситуации, возникшей у одного из клиентов, когда единственный продуктивный сервер с гипервизором VMware ESXi перестал загружаться.

Проблема была в том, что резервное копирование виртуальных машин VMware настроено не было, как и не было времени на диагностику и решение проблем с загрузкой системы. Поэтому было принято решение вручную скопировать файлы критичной виртуальной машины с хранилища VMFS и запустить ее на другом компьютере на срочно поднятом для этих целей гипервизоре ESXi.

Разберем два сценария доступа к данным на файловой системе VMFS: Как получить доступ к данным на VMFS разделе из-под Windows / Linux — http://pyatilistnik.org/kak-poluchit-dostup-k-dannyim-na-vmfs-razdele-iz-pod-windows-linux/

Являюсь автором проекта Windows, будь вкурсе всего, который насчитывает за пол года уже более 1000 статей.
Смотреть все записи автора cinquefoil2014

Источник

Sometimes you may need to mount a VMFS datastore in Linux, Windows, or another ESXi host. VMFS is a file system created by VMware that doesn’t have native support in other operating systems (supported only on ESXi operating systems). This blog post explains how to mount VMFS in different scenarios and the limitations of the different methods.

How to Mount the VMFS File System on Linux (Ubuntu)

If a hardware failure occurs, you have several options. You may need to be able to mount disks with VMFS datastores to another ESXi server during disaster recovery. You may also need to mount a VMware VMFS file system on a Linux machine to copy VM data for recovery. You can mount VMFS on Windows too, but this is limited to only VMFS 3, which is outdated and not used in modern vSphere environments. Examples of hardware failures are a broken motherboard on an ESXi server or a damaged storage controller such as a RAID controller, among others.

If you use separate SCSI or SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) disks or RAID 1 as directly attached storage, you can attach disks to another machine that has a SAS controller installed without additional steps. If you use RAID 10, RAID 0, or other array types, you need to use an identical RAID controller and install drivers on a Linux machine to detect the RAID volume with the attached disks.

Note: RAID 1 and RAID 10 are the most reliable RAID options, but RAID 1 is the easiest to recover. Using RAID 5 and RAID 6 has many disadvantages, including low reliability. Using non-raid disks in production environments is not recommended.

Before we start

In our example, we have an ESXi host with three datastores, each located on a separate disk for demonstration purposes.

Datastore000 is empty. The disk on which this datastore is located is a system disk that contains ESXi system partitions. ESXi is installed on this disk.
Datastore10a is located on a VMFS 6 volume and contains a Windows VM.
Datastore11 is located on a VMFS 5 volume and contains a copy of the Windows VM that is called Win-VM.

Three VM datastores are located on the ESXi server

Ubuntu 20.04.3 is a Linux machine on which we are going to mount VMFS file systems. We attach the two disks with datastore11 and datastore 10a to a Linux machine. Linux distributions don’t include the driver required to work with VMFS. For this reason, you need to install vmfs-tools, which is a free package and, after that, VMFS can be mounted in read-only mode.

How to mount VMFS 5 in Ubuntu

Run commands as root. Use sudo -i to get the root privileges that are required to install VMFS tools.
Install vmfs-tools from Ubuntu package repositories:

apt-get install vmfs-tools

The installed version of vmfs-tools is 0.2.5-1build1 in our case.

Create a directory that will be used as a mount point:

mkdir /mnt/vmfs

Check the names of disks and partitions with VMFS:

fdisk -l

Our disk with the VMFS 5 partition is /dev/sdb and the needed partition is /dev/sdb1

The VMFS 6 partition is /dev/sdc1

As you can see on the screenshot, the partition type is VMware VMFS. The unique disk identifier is displayed.

Checking VMFS partitions used for VM datastores

Note: You can use parted to view GPT partitions that are bigger than 2 TB:

parted -l

Let’s mount our VMFS 5 partition to the /mnt/vmfs/ directory:

vmfs-fuse /dev/sdb1 /mnt/vmfs

How to mount VMFS in Linux - a VM datastore using VMFS is mounted in Ubuntu

How to mount VMFS 6 in Ubuntu

Create a directory to be used as a mount point to mount VMFS 6 in Linux:

mkdir /mnt/vmfs6

Note: If you try to mount the VMFS 6 file system in Linux with vmfs-fuse, you get an error because vmfs-fuse supports VMFS 3 and VMFS 5 but doesn’t support VMFS 6. In this case, the following message appears:

VMFS: Unsupported version 6
>Unable to open filesystem

You need to install VMFS6-tools which contains vmfs6-fuse that is used to mount VMFS 6 in Linux. You can find VMFS6-tools on a website with deb packages: https://packages.debian.org/sid/vmfs6-tools

Download the current version of VMFS6-tools:

wget http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/v/vmfs6-tools/vmfs6-tools_0.1.0-3_amd64.deb

Install the downloaded deb package:

dpkg -i vmfs6-tools_0.1.0-3_amd64.deb

Installing VMFS 6 tools to mount VMFS in Linux

Note: libc6 >= 2.28 is required to install VMFS6-tools. If you use Ubuntu 18, you may encounter errors during installation for this reason.

Now you can mount VMFS in Ubuntu 20 to /mnt/vmfs6 with the command:

vmfs6-fuse /dev/sdc1 /mnt/vmfs6

Viewing contents of a VM datastore with VMFS in Linux

The VMFS 6 file system has been successfully mounted in Ubuntu 20 in read-only mode. Now you can copy VM files to the needed location. You can temporarily run copied VMs on Linux with VMware Workstation installed or on a Windows machine with VMware Workstation or Hyper-V until your ESXi server hardware is repaired or a new server is delivered (if you don’t have another ESXi host to run the VMs).

Remember that when you copy thin provisioned disks from a VMFS file system to ext4, NTFS, or other conventional file systems, the virtual disk files take up as much space as if they were thick provisioned. That’s why be ready to prepare enough disk space.

How to mount VMFS with multiple extents in Linux

Let’s look at a more complex example of mounting VMFS in Linux when a VMFS volume consists of two extents. We have two disks of the same size, which are combined into a single VMFS volume (datastore12).

A VM datastore that consists of two VMFS extents

Check the names of partitions:

fdisk -l

parted -l

Our two VMFS extents are located on the /dev/sdd1 and /dev/sde1 partitions.

Checking VMFS partitions that are used as extents for a VM datastore in Ubuntu

When mounting a VMFS file system that consists of multiple extents, use vmfs6-fuse with the command of the following format:

vmfs6-fuse exent_1 extent_2 extent_n mount_point

In our case the command is:

vmfs6-fuse /dev/sdd1 /dev/sde1 /mnt/vmfs6

As you can see on the screenshot below, the VMFS 6 file system, which consists of multiple extents, has been successfully mounted in Ubuntu.

A multi-extent VMFS datastore is mounted in Ubuntu with vmfs6-fuse

Now you know how to mount VMFS in Linux in different scenarios.

Mounting VMFS Partitions on a New VMware ESXi Host

You can mount VMFS datastores on different ESXi hosts. This option is useful when one of the ESXi hosts has failed and you need to copy data from a VMFS partition or run VMs stored on that partition. You can even perform the new ESXi installation on a server to mount existing VMFS datastores. The ESXi installation process is fast and straightforward and it usually takes a few minutes to install this hypervisor.

The advantage of this approach to mount existing VMFS datastores is that you use native software and the newest VMFS versions are supported in the read/write mode. Let’s look at how to mount VMFS datastores that already exist on another ESXi host.

Connect physical disks with VMFS partitions to the physical server on which ESXi is installed.
Log in to VMware Host Client in your web browser by entering the IP address of the ESXi host to which you have mounted a disk or disk array with a VMFS partition (partitions). We use ESXi 7.0 in our example.
Go to Storage > Devices and check whether the needed disks are displayed. Click Rescan if the disks are not displayed automatically.

Mount VMFS datastore ESXi – rescan disks

Go to Storage > Datastores and check whether your existing VMFS datastore is mounted. If you see a successful result, open the Datastore browser and copy the needed files. You can also find VMX files, register virtual machines, and run them on this ESXi host. If you right-click the VMFS datastore, you can see the Mount/Unmount options in the context menu.

How to Mount VMFS in Windows

The ability to mount VMFS in Windows is limited because you can use existing tools to mount only VMFS 3, which is outdated and not used in modern vSphere environments. VMFS 3 was supported in ESXi versions older than 5.0. VMware vSphere 7.0 doesn’t support VMFS 3.

At the time of writing of this post, VMFS 5 and VMFS 6 are widely used.

However, if you need to mount VMFS in Windows and the file system is VMFS 3, you can use the Open Source VMFS driver written on Java. This driver was last updated in 2010 and requires Java installed in Windows.

Connect a disk (disks) with a VMFS datastore to your Windows computer.
Download the Open Source VMFS driver by using the link: https://code.google.com/archive/p/vmfs/
Extract the files from the downloaded fvmfs_r95_dist.zip archive to a custom directory, for example, C:\VMFS
In Windows Command Prompt (CMD), go to the directory where you have extracted the Open Source VMFS Driver and run fvmfs.jar which is a Java application.

cd C:\VMFS

java -jar fvmfs.jar

Open Computer Management in Windows (right-click My Computer > Manage) and go to Disk Management. Determine which number is assigned to your disk with the VMFS datastore, for example, index 1 – Disk1. This number is interpreted for the VMFS driver as \\.\PhysicalDrive1
Get information about this disk in the console:

java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 info

Share this disk by using the WebDAV protocol. The WebClient Service must be started in Windows for this purpose.

java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 webdav

Mount the shared disk with VMFS in Windows by using the command:

net use * http://localhost:50080/vmfs

Check disks in Computer Management. After a disk letter is assigned, you can open this disk in My Computer (Windows Explorer) in read-only mode to view and copy files from the VMFS disk volume.
Don’t close the CMD window until you finish working with the VMFS volume mounted in Windows.

Conclusion

We have explained how to mount VMFS in Linux, Windows, and ESXi. The easiest way to mount existing VMFS datastores is attaching the disks to another ESXi host. However, you can mount VMFS in Linux in the read-only mode, including the latest VMFS 5 and VMFS file systems. VMFS tools and VMFS 6 tools are used for this purpose. As for Windows, VMFS support is quite limited for existing tools and doesn’t allow you to mount the latest VMFS versions in Windows.

Manual VM recovery by copying files from a VMFS file system mounted to a healthy computer after an ESXi host failure can be time-consuming. You can protect data in a more efficient way if you use a professional backup solution such as NAKIVO Backup & Replication that supports VM backup on the host level, thin provisioned disks, instant VM recovery, and instant granular recovery. Restoring VM data from a backup can be more effective than manual VMFS recovery.

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