Glance

How to use multipart VMDKs

Asked by Jason Martin

I'm attempting to use OpenStack w/VMWare ESX 4.1.0. VMWare does not appear to understand the standard AMI images linked in the OpenStack documentation (such as ttylinux-uec-amd64-12.1_2.6.35-22_1.tar.gz) and pops up with just Operation System not found. I've checked the disk files nova created and they contain the .img contents of this.

As such I am trying to use a VMDK-based image to start with. I am attempting to start with a CentOS minimal image, however it is packaged as a collection of .vdks that make up one 'disk':

centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s001.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s002.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s003.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s004.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s005.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s006.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s007.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s008.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s009.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s010.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal-s011.vmdk
centos-6.0-x86_64-minimal.vmdk

I don't see any mechanism in Glance / Nova to utilize this sort of image; is there a way to use it?

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Jay Pipes (jaypipes) said : 		#1

Sorry, Jason, I'm really not familiar with VMWare. I'll ask on the ML for some assistance here...
-jay

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a abes (a-abes) said : 		#2

Not sure how to make nova accept multiple files, but you could use vmware-vdiskmanager to convert the split disk into a single file.
(I used the version that's bundled with workstation).

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Sateesh (sateesh-chodapuneedi) said : 		#3

Hi Jason,

Nova vmwareapi driver supports only the vmdk image format of "Monolithic File Flat" which is thick (pre-allocate).
I suggest to convert the split images to a single monolithic flat file before trying to use with openstack.

Few useful links for disk conversion,
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/VirtualDiskManager.pdf

Hope that helps!

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