Can't Consolidate Snapshots on Powered On NFS VMs

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

If you are using the NetApp NAS Plugin you may not be able to consolidate powered on snapshots. If you check the hostd.log you will see: 

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS. Er(##) Hostd[########]: [Originator@#### sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/Datastore/VMName.vmx] Exception Insufficient permission to access file trying to get sizes from /vmfs/volumes/Datastore/VMName.vmdk

Or, you can check for this error in the syslog.log: 

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Er(##) vaainasd[########]: DISKLIB-PLUGIN : :[vendor_nas_plugin : /vmfs/volumes/UUID] : Extended stats failed:[/vmfs/volumes/Datastore/VMName-flat.vmdk], Error: You do not have access rights to this file.

Finally, you can also see this error in the vmware.log for the specific VM: 

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Er(##) vmx - DISKLIB-LINK  : DiskLinkGetSize: Failed to get extent size: Insufficient permission to access file
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Er(##) vmx - ConsolidateFillSnapDiskTransferArray: Failed to fetch disk size of '/vmfs/volumes/Datastore/VMName/VMName-000001.vmdk' for consolidate: Insufficient permission to access file

 

These messages are sent by the netapp plug in showing that it does not have the permissions required in order to consolidate the powered on VM 

Environment

VMware vSphere 8.0.x

VMware vSphere 7.0.x

Cause

This is caused by the netapp plug not having permission to lock the in use vmdk. Due to this, you cannot consolidate the powered on VM 

Resolution

You will need to contact Netapp support to resolve this permanently, however, you can work around this as well. To work around this, power down the VM before consolidating snapshots, or turn off the plug in before consolidating snapshots on a live VM.