Vmware ESXi recover .img backup

timahe · 10-23-2017, 05:42 PM

Hi,

I'm really straight on the hose and hope a clever head couldhelp me.
A backup was created from a VMware ESXi server using dd. Result: (large) .img file.
I need to get this restored in order to save the .vmdk files. At the disposal I have dedicated Ubuntu 16.04.
First I just tried to mount it (got offset number using parted)

Quote:

mount -o loop,ro,offset=123456 backup.img /mnt/root

Spits out the following error message:

Quote:

mount: unknown filesystem type 'VMFS_volume_member'

After that I came to vmfs-tools. Here, I can not mount an image (seems to work only with active disks, did not find anything via Google to get the image mounted).

Do you have an idea? In my despair, I've already try to do it using

Quote:

dd if=backup.img of=/dev/sdX

Shoot me the Filesystem.
How else could I proceed?

Would be very grateful for any advice.

Best regards

ShadowCat8 · 10-23-2017, 09:00 PM

Greetings,

I have hit a similar situation and found a way around it...

You have vmfs-tools... Good!

IIRC, the correct mount command was something to the effect of:

Code:

 # vmfs-fuse backup.img /mnt/root/

HTH. Let us know.

timahe · 10-24-2017, 03:45 AM

Hi,
thanks for you answer!!
Already tried that but I think it would be the same as mounting: I would need to determine where the offset/partition I want to mount to is.

Quote:

vmfs-fuse backup.img /mnt/root/
VMFS VolInfo: invalid magic number 0x00000000
VMFS: Unable to read volume information
Trying to find partitions
Unable to open device/file "backup.img".
Unable to open filesystem

ShadowCat8 · 10-31-2017, 08:50 PM

Greetings again,

How about running parted against the image file?

Don't forget to set the Units to "B" (e.g. bytes) to get your proper offsets. For example:

Code:

# parted /opt/pub/images/testing/2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.img
GNU Parted 3.2
Using /opt/pub/images/testing/2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.img
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print                                                            
Model:  (file)
Disk /opt/pub/images/testing/2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.img: 1940MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      4194kB  62.9MB  58.7MB  primary  fat16        lba
 2      62.9MB  1940MB  1877MB  primary  ext4

(parted) unit                                                             
Unit?  [compact]? B                                                       
(parted) print                                                            
Model:  (file)
Disk /opt/pub/images/testing/2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.img: 1939865600B
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start      End          Size         Type     File system  Flags
 1      4194304B   62914559B    58720256B    primary  fat16        lba
 2      62914560B  1939865599B  1876951040B  primary  ext4

(parted)

HTH. Let us know.