Create Remote Disk

As stated in Support for Managed Disk, VixDiskLib_Create() does not support managed disk. To create a managed disk on the remote ESXi host, first create a hosted disk on the local Workstation, then convert the hosted disk into managed disk with VixDiskLib_Clone() over the network.

To create remote managed disk using the sample program, type the following commands:

./vix-disklib-sample -create -cap 1000000 virtdisk.vmdk

./vix-disklib-sample -clone virtdisk.vmdk -host esx3i -user root -password secret vmfsdisk.vmdk

You could write a virtual-machine provisioning application to perform the following steps:

Procedure

  1. Create a hosted disk VMDK with 2GB capacity, using VixDiskLib_Create().
  2. Write image of the guest OS and application software into the VMDK, using VixDiskLib_Write().
  3. Clone the hosted disk VMDK onto the VMFS file system of the ESXi host. 
    vixError = VixDiskLib_Clone(appGlobals.connection, appGlobals.diskPath,
               srcConnection, appGlobals.srcPath,
               &createParams, CloneProgressFunc, NULL, TRUE);

    In this call, appGlobals.connection and appGolbals.diskPath represent the remote VMDK on the ESXi host, while srcConnection and appGlobals.srcPath represent the local hosted VMDK.

  4. Power on the new guest OS to get a new virtual machine.

    On Workstation, the VixVMPowerOn() function in the VIX API does this. For ESXi hosts, you must use the PowerOnVM_Task method. As easy way to use this method is in the VMware vSphere Perl Toolkit, which has the PowerOnVM_Task() call (non-blocking), and the PowerOnVM() call (synchronous).

  5. Provision and deploy the new virtual machine on the ESXi host.