Disclaimer: Use this at your own risk. I provide no guarantees that this will work for you or set your SAN/VMWare ablaze. I suggest to test it with less risky resources.
To copy ESXi boot lun you'll need two ESXi hosts. Host #1 Source. Host #2 - assist host.
DO NOT RESCAN storage yet or you will cause a purple screen!
Disconnect both luns from 2nd host, connect the new Lun to the source host as LUN ID 1
change boot policy on the host to boot from new LUN
reboot it validate boot
you're done.
To copy ESXi boot lun you'll need two ESXi hosts. Host #1 Source. Host #2 - assist host.
- Put one in maintenance mode and ensure that this host has one throw away powered off the virtual machine.
- Mount the boot from the old system you wish to clone/copy with a known Lun ID (let's say 7)
- Mount the blank LUN (same sized) from a new SAN also with known Lun ID (let's say 8)
- Re-scan storage adapter (skip VMFS discovery for the quicker process)
- SSH to the ESXi host in maintenance mode
- I generally like to browse to the folder of temp VM.
- Issue two commands:
esxcfg-mpath -L |grep L7
esxcfg-mpath -L |grep L8 - Make a note of "naa." device IDs for both LUNs - you will need them in a second
- vmkfstools -z /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.of_source_lun /vmfs/volumes/location _of_temp_ vm/name_of_lun_to_clone.vmdk
- vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/location _of_temp_ vm/name_of_lun_to_clone.vmdk -d rdm:/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.of_destination_lun name_of_lun_to_clone2.vmdk
DO NOT RESCAN storage yet or you will cause a purple screen!
Disconnect both luns from 2nd host, connect the new Lun to the source host as LUN ID 1
change boot policy on the host to boot from new LUN
reboot it validate boot
you're done.
