How to create a new virtual disk on the SDDC Manager Controller VM in VMware Cloud Foundation

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps on how to create a new virtual disk for the SDDC Manager Controller VM.

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation 2.2.x
VMware Cloud Foundation 2.3.x

Resolution

1. ssh to the SDDC Manager Controller VM as the root user.
2. Issue the following command and make note of the sdx entries
   
   ls /dev/sd*

Note: You will see output similar to the following:

/dev/sda  /dev/sda1  /dev/sda2  /dev/sda3  /dev/sda4  /dev/sdb

3. Log in to the vCenter Server using the vSphere Web Client.
4. In the vSphere Client inventory, Right-click the SDDC Manager Controller VM and select Edit Settings.
5. Click the Hardware tab and click Add.
6. Select Hard Disk and click Next.
7. Complete the wizard to add the disk.
8. Reboot the SDDC Manager Controller VM.
9. ssh to the SDDC Manager Controller VM as the root user.
10. Issue the same /dev/sd* from Step 2 and make a note of the new entry.
11. Issue a command similar to the following to create an ext3 file system on the new disk, using the new sdx value returned from step 10.
    
    mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdx
    
    Note: You may see an alert that you are performing this operation on an entire device, not a partition. That is correct, as you created a single virtual disk of the intended size. This is assuming you have specified the correct device. Ensure you have selected the right device, there is no means of reverting this change.
     
12. Issue the fdisk command to verify the existence of the disk you created:
    
    fdisk -l

Note: You will see output similar to the following:

Disk /dev/sdc: 50 GiB, 53687091200 bytes, 104857600 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

 

13. Issue a command similar to the following to create a mount point for the new disk:
    
    mkdir -p /<New_Directory_Name>
     
14. Issue the following command to display the contents of the current /etc/fstab file:
    
    cat /etc/fstab

Note: You will see output similar to the following:

#system mnt-pt type options,nosuid,nodev dump fsck
/dev/sda3 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/sda2       swap    swap    defaults        0       0
/dev/sda1 /boot ext3 defaults,nosuid,noacl,nodev,noexec 1 2
/dev/data_vg/data /data ext3 rw,nosuid,nodev,exec,auto,nouser,async 0 1
/dev/cdrom  /mnt/cdrom  udf,iso9660  defaults,auto,user,ro  0  0
192.168.100.46:/mnt/lcm-bundle-repo /home/vrack/VMware/vRack/nfs-mount/lcm/repo nfs nosuid,nodev,noexec,auto 0 0

 

15. Open the /etc/fstab with a text editor and add a line similar to the following to ensure that the new file system is mounted at reboot:
    
    /dev/sdx /New_Directory_Name ext3 defaults 1 3
     
16. Issue a command similar to the following to mount the disk/file-system:

mount /New_Directory_Name

Additional Information

Creating a new virtual disk for an existing Linux virtual machine (1003940)

Impact/Risks:
Manipulating the wrong disk can result to data loss or catastrophic failure of the SDDC Manager Controller VM. Ensure that a backup of the SDDC Manager Controller VM is taken prior to implementing this change.