topic Re: How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ? in Additional Virtualization Discussions

How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ?

renault — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:18:55 GMT

All,

I would like to align a .vhd file ? how can I do that ?

Mbralign works only for .vmdk file of ESX.

Thanks

Re: How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ?

amritad — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:16:01 GMT

For Xen the file system on the guest VM should align with the NetApp storage blocks

Section 4.3 of this TR talks about alignment in Xen Server environments

http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3747.pdf

Regards

amrita

Re: How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ?

renault — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:54:07 GMT

Hi,

Thanks for this link. I read that I can use MBRScan to check alignment of a .vhd file.

But MBRAlign, which allow to correct aligment works only on .vmdk files, not .vhd files.

In my case, I P2V a Windows XP workstation, and I have an unaligned .vhd file. I would like to align it.

Thanks

Re: How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ?

forgette — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:32:06 GMT

Hi -

The mbralign tool has not been ported to work in the XenServer environment. The best way to get your p2v VM aligned is to use the host based tools. You'll need to create a second vhd, present it and the misaligned vhd to a second VM, create a properly aligned partition on the new vhd, then use robocopy/xcopy/etc to copy the data from one vhd to another. You'll then need to replace the misaligned vhd with the one you just created. The TR Amrita pointed out has the details on how to create an aligned vhd.

Another option you might explore is gparted (Note: NetApp does not support or endorse this). It is a bootable linux distribution that might be helpful. A customer pointed it out to me, but I haven't used it.

Hope this helps,

-Eric

Re: How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ?

mlorente1 — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 13:05:48 GMT

I have read that MBRscan works under Citrix Xenserver hosts, unlike MBRAlign does. Accordding to TR3747 I must log into dom0 in order to run MBRScan. But after log in, if I try just installing by the install command it says that is not a VMware supported version (of course, I am on a Xenserver 5.5), if I untar the file which contains the tools and do ./mbrscan file.vhd it says "Unknown format, skipping..". So, my questios is, how must that tool run on Citrix Xenserver?

Re: How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ?

forgette — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:10:35 GMT

It will only work on "fixed" vhd format disks. The tool does not understand the "differencing" nor the "dynamic" format.

Re: How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ?

mlorente1 — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:04:30 GMT

I am sorry, but I do not understand what do you mean with "fixed", "differencing" or "dinamic". I am trying to scan vhd files corresponding to stopped VM or snapshots, but it fails.

Re: How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ?

forgette — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:08:01 GMT

The VHD specification lists three formats. They are explained here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd323654%28VS.85%29.aspx

I think (may be out dated info) the default format for XenServer in NFS storage repositories is dynamic.

Re: How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ?

mlorente1 — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:27:22 GMT

Ok, now I understand your previous reply. Since I am able to raise the size of disks, I must assume that are dinamic type, and of course, snapshots and machines built from them are differencing type, so the issue is clear.

Do you know if there is a newer version of TR 3747 with complete information about xenserver?. TR 3747 seems incomplete on citrix sections, it refers to missing points or do not talk about it is suppose to do.

Thanks for your help

Re: How to "MBRAlign" a vhd running under XenServer ?

forgette — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:13:23 GMT

While I contributed to the TR, I don't know when the next version will be available or if it will contain an update for XenServer.
Sorry,

-Eric