Moving the esxconsole.vmdk and esxconsole-flat.vmdk files to a different location

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to change the location of the esxconsole.vmdk file to a different location. Depending on your requirements, you may want to move it to a local data store or a shared data store.

Environment

VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESX 4.0.x

Resolution

Before moving the esxconsole.vmdk file to a different location, ensure to:

• Back up the esx.conf file located at /etc/vmware.
• Make a note of the folder name that contains the esxconsole.vmdk file.
• Take screenshot of the network configuration and the storage configuration of the host.

To proceed with this process you will need 2 ESX hosts:

• ESX1 - ESX host containing the esxconsole.vmdk to be moved.
• ESX2 - Helper ESX/ESXi host, used to assist in cloning esxconsole.vmdk.

To change the location of the esxconsole.vmdk file:

1. Power down ESX1.
2. Attach the volume containing esxconsole.vmdk to the helper host ESX2.
3. Boot ESX2, ensuring that the correct boot partition is selected.
4. Clone the esxconsole.vmdk file to a destination location of your choice using this command:
   
   vmkfstools -i source_vmdk_location destination_vmdk_location
   
   For example:
   
   vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/Shared01/esxconsole-4a2d5663-a142-af9b-42e1-0024e84db6e2/esxconsole.vmdk /vmfs/volume/backup_datastore/folder_name/esxconsole.vmdk
   
   
5. Power off the helper host ESX2.
6. Attach the volume containing esxconsole.vmdk to the host ESX1.
7. Power on ESX1.
8. Backup the /etc/vmware/esx.conf file.
9. Ensure that the esxconsole.vmdk (the resultant vmdk after the preceding cloning process) exactly matches the original vmdk file.
   
   For example:
   
   ------------------
   # Disk DescriptorFile
   version=1
   encoding="UTF-8"
   CID=fffffffe
   parentCID=ffffffff
   isNativeSnapshot="no"
   createType="vmfs"
   
   # Extent description
   RW 16875520 VMFS "esxconsole-flat.vmdk"
   
   # The Disk Data Base
   #DDB
   
   ddb.virtualHWVersion = "7"
   ddb.longContentID = "c4099c987c48a4330be059dafffffffe"
   ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 9d 52 16 fb a0-a3 4f 6f d1 11 e0 73 9b"
   ddb.geometry.cylinders = "1050"
   ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
   ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
   ddb.adapterType = "buslogic"
   ddb.consoleOsDisk = "True"
   --------------------------
   
   
10. Copy the cloned esxconsole.vmdk and esxconsole-flat.vmdk files to the newly created folder in the desired destination datastore.
    
    Note: Ensure that the name of the newly created folder exactly matches the name of the folder in which the original esxconsole.vmdk file was present.
    
    
11. Open the esx.conf file using a text editor.
12. Edit this entry in the file:
    
    /boot/cosvmdk = "/vmfs/volumes/datastore_UUID/folder_name/esxconsole.vmdk"
    
    Where:
    
    datastore_UUID is the UUID of the datastore which contains the folder with the newly created esxconsole.vmdk file
    folder_name is the name of the folder that has the esxconsole.vmdk file
    
    
13. Save and close the file.
14. Reboot the host.
15. After the host comes online, verify if it is running the ESX console from the new location. To confirm this, try to copy the esxconsole.vmdk file to a different location. If it is in use, the copy process should fail.
16. Delete the backup and the original folder in which the esxconsole.vmdk and esxconsole-flat.vmdk files were present.

Note: If the preceding steps for changing the location of the esxconsole.vmdk file fails, you may have to reinstall ESX.