MBRAlign on ESXi

[#1]

Hi,

I've just installed a fresh ESXi 4.1 install using NFS and our FAS3140c. I want to realign any migrated Windows 2003 server OS partitions and have read about MBRalign. Using ESXi makes this more challenging as I dont have a service console to install the EHU into. I've read this article http://blogs.netapp.com/storage_nuts_n_bolts/2009/10/esxi---mbrscanmbralign.html and proceeded to do what was instructed BUT it doesn't seem to work.

I have used the mbrtools.tar.gz download that comes with the VSC 2.0.1 VCenter plugin, extracted it to a /tmp directory on a Linux guest OS (even tried /sbin and /sbin/usr) but just get 'No such file or directory' when I attempt to run it. It's not a permissions issue as I've chown'd and chmod'd the utility. For reference, i've alos mounted the DS with the VM OS vmdks in without issue...

Can anyone help any further? I've tried Ubuntu and Fedora 14 variants of Linux as the guest OS to run this from but get the same error on both. Also, the mbrtools.tar.gz utility doesn't contain mbrscan either..... is there anyway I can run / use MBRScan in this environment?

Thanks in advance

[#2]

I would be very interested in this too.

I have tried different linux versions too, 64 and 32.  I'm thinking of installing a virtual ESX host just to use mbralign....

looking forward to what others have to say.

[#3]

I've had problems using the version of mbraling that comes with VSC before. I'd recommend trying the version that is packaged with the standalone ESX host utilities, and see if you have more luck with that.

[#4]

Tried Installing EHU 5.1 onto an ESX host. Copied the /opt/netapp/santools dir to a Fedora 14 box and get the same problem.

Is it anything to do with the fact that its a 32 bit application running on a 64 bit Linux platform?

I've just tried using GParted (I know this isn't supported) but it seems to work fine. Only 'issue' I have is that the StartingOffset has to be set at 1024. Is this an issue for Windows 2003? It's properly aligned so I can't see it being so but would like a sanity check!

Cheers

[#5]

Guys,

I have made this work on both an Ubuntu 10.10 and Fedora VM fine. The only issue I found was that it will only recognise -flat.vmdk's

[#6]

Thats the default behaviour of mbralign. The flat-vmdk disk is the disk with the actual stored data which would need aligning...

Could you detail which version of MBRAlign you used.

How you extracted it from either EHU or the tarball included in the VSC 2.0.1 console

How you got it copied into the linux host.

Which directory you copied it into

Any permissions / ownership or host modification changes you made?

Sorry to ask so much but i'm curious to see what i (and a lot of others) are doing wrong

Thanks

[#7]

I am using the version that came with VSC 2.0.1 and I extracted it using the GUI via Ubuntu into the /home/user directory.

For some reason I need to run the command from the root / location

sudo /home/user/mbrscan /nfs_datastore/vm01/vm01-flat.vmdk

If I run mbrscan from within the /home/user directory I get command not found...

Hope this helps.

[#8]

Interesting. I have carried out what you do and I no longer get the error message BUT nothing else happens!!

I'm doing this on fedora 14 

[#9]

Try using ldd to find out if you're missing any (32-bit) libraries for the binary:

[root@esx1 ~]# ldd /opt/netapp/santools/mbrscan

        libnsl.so.1 => /lib/libnsl.so.1 (0x00699000)

        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x0047a000)

        libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x004ae000)

        libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0xf7ef6000)

        libutil.so.1 => /lib/libutil.so.1 (0xf7ef2000)

        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00480000)

        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00334000)

        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x00316000)

[root@esx1 ~]# ldd /opt/netapp/santools/mbralign

        libnsl.so.1 => /lib/libnsl.so.1 (0x00699000)

        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x0047a000)

        libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x004ae000)

        libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0xf7f8b000)

        libutil.so.1 => /lib/libutil.so.1 (0xf7f87000)

        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00480000)

        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00334000)

        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x00316000)

[root@esx1 ~]#

If any of these libs comes up as "not found" then you need to install (compatibility-)libraries for your OS

-Michael

[#10]

I have heard you can take the ESXi 4.1 into Tech Support mode and then install the host utilities, has anyone tried this?