Determine the boot drive for the ESXi Host

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The purpose of this article is to determine the boot drive for ESXi Host.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

 

Resolution

To find out on which Drive the ESXi has been installed, please refer to the following steps

Method 1:

1. Log in to ESXi server through SSH.
2. Run the below command directly on the Host

          "esxcli storage core device partition list" 

Note below example:
[root@esx01:~] esxcli storage core device partition list

Device                                            Partition  Start Sector           End Sector       Type         Size
------------------------------------           ----------- ------------------- ------------------------ ----------- ------------------
naa.##################fa          1           2048                      6144                  fa           2097152
naa.##################fa          2           6144                      10485727          f9           5365546496
naa.##################b8          0              0                        125829120        0            64424509440
naa.##################b8          1             64                       8192                  0            4161536
naa.##################b8          2          7086080                15472640          6            4293918720
naa.##################b8          5           8224                      520192             6            262127616
naa.##################b8          6          520224                   1032192           6            262127616
naa.##################b8          7         1032224                  1257472           fc           115326976
naa.##################b8          8         1257504                  1843200           6            299876352
naa.##################b8          9         1843200                  7086080           fc           2684354560
naa.##################b8         10        15472640                125827073       fb           6501469696
naa.##################33          0              0                         10485760         0            5368709120
naa.##################33          1            2048                     6144                fa            2097152

Note: On the left we see the drive with naa ID: naa.##################b8 has 8 partitions from (1 to 2 & 5 to 10),this is the drive where ESXi has been installed.

Method 2:

1. Run the command:

esxcli storage core device list | grep -B 30 "Is Boot Device: true"

Note the naa id in the Display name

[root@esx01:~] esxcli storage core device list | grep -B 30 "Is Boot Device: true"
   Display Name: VMware Serial Attached SCSI Disk (naa.##################b8)
   Has Settable Display Name: true
   Size: 61440
   Device Type: Direct-Access
   Multipath Plugin: NMP
   Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.##################b8
   Vendor: VMware
   Model: Virtual disk
   Revision: 1.0
   SCSI Level: 2
   Is Pseudo: false
   Status: degraded
   Is RDM Capable: true
   Is Local: false
   Is Removable: false
   Is SSD: false
   Is VVOL PE: false
   Is Offline: false
   Is Perennially Reserved: false
   Queue Full Sample Size: 0
   Queue Full Threshold: 0
   Thin Provisioning Status: yes
   Attached Filters:
   VAAI Status: unsupported
   Other UIDs: vml.020##################561
   Is Shared Clusterwide: true
   Is Local SAS Device: false
   Is SAS: true
   Is USB: false
   Is Boot USB Device: false
   Is Boot Device: true
 

Method 3:

1. Login to ESXi host, make sure you are in the root directory.
2. Run ls -l to identify where is the bootbank and altbootbank volumes.
3. Navigate inside the bootbank using the command : cd bootbank
4. Run the command:

vmkfstools -P a.b00
 
Note: We just picked the first file in this directory, it can be run on any file. We can also move to altbootbank directory and run vmkfstools -P on a file inside it.
 

[root@esx01:/vmfs/volumes/721e6676-8283a728-a76c-8201cbef9695] vmkfstools -P a.b00
vfat-0.04 (Raw Major Version: 0) file system spanning 1 partitions.
File system label (if any):
Mode: private
Capacity 261853184 (63929 file blocks * 4096), 107081728 (26143 blocks) avail, max supported file size 0
UUID: 721##################695
Partitions spanned (on "disks"):
        naa.##################b8:5
Is Native Snapshot Capable: NO
If you want to see the partitions (along with partition name) spanned on this Boot drive just run the partedutil command.

[root@esx01:~] partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.##################b8
gpt
7832 255 63 125829120
1 64 8191 C12A7328F81F11D2BA4B00A0C93EC93B systemPartition 128
5 8224 520191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
6 520224 1032191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
7 1032224 1257471 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8 vmkDiagnostic 0
8 1257504 1843199 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
9 1843200 7086079 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8 vmkDiagnostic 0
2 7086080 15472639 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
10 15472640 125827072 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0