Accessing Virtual Hard Disks Outside of VMware Workstation for Linux

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http://www.vmware.com/support/reference/linux/loopback_linux.html

vmware-mount is a program that runs on the host operating system. It makes a virtual disk file appear as a hard disk to the operating system.

How to Use vmware-mount.pl

Say, for example, that your virtual hard disk file is ~/vmware/vhd.dsk. Follow these steps:

Become root:
```
su
```

Determine the partition of the virtual hard disk to export: Issue the following command to print the partition table of the virtual hard disk:

vmware-mount.pl -p ~/vmware/vhd.dsk

--------------------------------------------
VMware Workstation for Linux - Virtual Hard Disk Mounter
    Copyright (C) 1999 VMware, Inc.
--------------------------------------------

Nr Start    Size      Id Sytem
-- -------- --------- -- -------------------
1  63       4092417   C  Win95 FAT32 (LBA)

Now, find the partition number (first column) you want to export. Let's say it is 1.

Mount the disk partition on a directory. Let's say you want to mount your partition on the directory /mnt/vhd. Issue the following command:

vmware-mount.pl ~/vmware/vhd.dsk 1 /mnt/vhd

--------------------------------------------
VMware Workstation for Linux - Virtual Hard Disk Mounter
   Copyright (C) 1999 VMware, Inc.
--------------------------------------------

Network Block Device driver detected.

Trying to map the partition to the /dev/nb0 Network
Block Device..  Success.

You can now browse your Virtual Hard Disk partition
in /mnt/vhd  Hit Control-C in this terminal when done.

You can now browse /mnt/vhd as usual. It works as if a physical device were mounted on the directory When you are finished, simply kill vmware-mount.pl by typing Ctrl-C in its terminal.

[...]

How to Use vmware-mount.pl

% vmware-mount.pl . . . /mnt/os1/
VMware for Linux - Virtual Hard Disk Mounter
 Version: 1.0 build-34685
Copyright 1998 VMware, Inc.  All rights reserved. -- VMware Confidential

It has been reported that this program does not work correctly with 2.4+ Linux
kernels in some cases, and you are currently running such a kernel. Do you
really want to continue? [N] y

No Network Block Device detected.

There is no Network Block Device defined on this machine. This script is about
to create the /dev/nb0 Network Block Device. Continue? [Y]

Creating the /dev/nb0 Network Block Device

No Network Block Device driver detected.

Trying to load the Network Block Device driver kernel module... Success.

Client: The partition is now mapped on the /dev/nb0 Network Block Device.

Using another terminal, you can now browse your Virtual Hard Disk partition in
/mnt/os1/. Hit Control-C in this terminal when done.

documented on: 2007-08-13