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vmpmotion.pl updated to combat VMware bug

VMware has released KB 1003874 that explains the thin provisioning bug with Storage VMotion. They also released a perl script to determine if a VM is affected by the bug and announced that an unreleased patch ( ESX350-200802411-BG ) deals with the bug. I have taken the script that VMware has provided to determine if the VM is affected by the bug, and integrated it into the vmpmotion.pl script. When the script is run it tags each affected VM. Some sample output:

esxcfg-rcli:~# ./vmpmotion.pl
cluster: cluster01
[01] VM01 : [VMFS3-LUN00] VM01/VM01.vmx [thin provision bug]
[02] VM02 : [VMFS3-LUN05] VM02/VM02.vmx [thin provision bug]
[03] VM03 : [VMFS3-LUN02] VM03/VM03.vmx
[04] VM04 : [VMFS3-LUN04] VM04/VM04.vmx
[05] VM05 : [VMFS3-LUN02] VM05/VM05.vmx

If you use Storage VMotion on a VM affected by the bug, the process will fail at 99% with the error:

Received an error from the server: A general system error occurred: DMotion:
Failed to unstun VM after disk reparent. You will have to manually
perform the relocation.

VMware has also released a perl script that can be run to complete the failed Storage VMotion, but it needs to be run on the ESX host that had the Storage VMotion fail which means I can't incorperate it into vmpmotion.pl. I don't suggest that you use Storage VMotion on any VM that is affected by the bug.


Go grab a fresh copy of vmpmotion.pl

Posted by Dominic Rivera at Thursday, February 21, 2008.