Committing snapshots from within the Service Console

Products

VMware

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information related to committing a snapshot that is present in a virtual machine, using the command line in the Service Console.

Note: This article is for ESX. To commit snapshots on the command-line of an ESXi host, see Committing snapshots on ESXi host from command line (1026380).

Resolution

VMware recommends having free space equal to the snapshots and base disk size before committing snapshots.

If you do not have enough free space, migrate to another disk that has enough free space and consolidate the snapshots into a new virtual disk file (VMDK). For more information on consolidating disk files, see Consolidating snapshots (1007849).

To commit snapshots to a base disk from the command-line:

Find the path to the VMX file of the virtual machine either from the VMware Infrastructure/vSphere Client or by running this command:

# vmware-cmd -l /vmfs/volumes/volume-UUID-or-name/vm1/vm1.vmx /vmfs/volumes/volume-UUID-or-name/vm2/vm2.vmx
Determine if the virtual machine has snapshots with this command:

# vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/volume-UUID-or-name/vm1/vm1.vmx hassnapshotThe output looks like:

hassnapshot() =
or

hassnapshot() = 1If the result is not equal to one (1), there are no snapshots for the virtual machine and there is no reason to proceed further.
Remove (or commit) the snapshot by running this command:

# vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/volume-UUID-or-name/vm1/vm1.vmx removesnapshots removesnapshots() = 1If the result is one (1), the snapshots have been successfully committed. If the result is something other than one (1), file a Support Request with VMware Support and note this KB Article ID in the problem description. For more information, see How to Submit a Support Request.

Notes:

This procedure deletes all snapshots on the virtual machine and commits the changes in the delta disks to the base disc. The base disc has all changes to the data.
If this procedure does not work, there may be an issue with the snapshot information vmsd file. For more information. see Committing snapshots when there are no snapshot entries in the snapshot manager (1002310).

Additional Information

For more information on the snapshot process in ESX, see Understanding virtual machine snapshots in VMware ESX (1015180).

For more information on performing commits to a snapshot using the vSphere Infrastructure Client, see the Basic System Administration Guide for your version of ESX.

Most snapshot related issues have improved with changes to the Delete All snapshot process in the patch releases for ESX/ESXi 3.5 and 4.0. For more information, see:

Committing snapshots when there are no snapshot entries in the Snapshot Manager
Consolidating snapshots in ESX/ESXi 3.x and 4.x
Understanding VM snapshots in ESXi / ESX
VMware ESX 4.0, Patch ESX400-201006201-UG: Updates the VMware ESX 4.0 Core and CIM components
VMware ESXi 4.0, Patch ESXi400-201006201-UG: Updates Firmware
VMware ESXi 3.5, Patch ESXe350-201006401-I-SG: Updates firmware
VMware ESX 3.5, Patch ESX350-201006401-SG: Updates VMkernel, VMware Tools, hostd, VMX, VMnix
Snapshot Manager fails to detect snapshots of VMs
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