Identifying vSAN Objects with FTT=0 Policy on vSAN 8 Hosts Using ESXi Shell

Products

• VMware vSAN 8.x

Issue/Introduction

vSAN objects require identification when configured with a storage policy where Failures to Tolerate (FTT) is set to 0.
Identifying these objects is critical before entering Maintenance Mode or performing cluster upgrades,
as FTT=0 objects have no redundancy and require full data migration to remain accessible.

Environment

VMware vSAN 8.0

Cause

Administrative requirement to isolate non-redundant vSAN objects prior to cluster maintenance operations.

Resolution

• Log in to the ESXi host via SSH as the root user.
• Execute the following command to scan the vSAN object list and filter for the specific policy parameter:
  esxcli vsan debug object list --all | grep -C 15 "hostFailuresToTolerate: 0"

• • Note: esxcli vsan debug object list lists detailed configuration for vSAN objects, --all ensures the command scans the global object list available to the host,
    and grep -C 15 searches for the FTT=0 string and displays surrounding lines to identify the Object Name and UUID.

• Analyze the returned block of text for each object. Locate the Object UUID and Path: fields to identify which object (e.g., vmdk, VM Namespace, swap) is affected.

 

Additional Information

Example Output:

#esxcli vsan debug object list --all | grep -C 15 "hostFailuresToTolerate: 0"

Object UUID: 5a4b1c2d-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-9k0l1m2n3o4p

Version: 17

Health: healthy

Owner: <REDACTED_HOSTNAMES>

Policy:

   stripeWidth: 1

   cacheReservation: 0

   proportionalCapacity: 0

   hostFailuresToTolerate: 0

   forceProvisioning: 0

   spbmProfileId: aa11bb22-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-ff66gg77hh88

   spbmProfileGenerationNumber: 1

Configuration:

   ...

Type: vdisk

Path: /vmfs/volumes/vsan:52XX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX.../VM_Name/VM_Name.vmdk