{"id":12698,"date":"2019-08-05T05:23:14","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T03:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances\/"},"modified":"2019-08-05T05:23:14","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T03:23:14","slug":"sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances\/","title":{"rendered":"Sparse OVM virtual disks on appliances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For some reason, you may need to sparse OVM virtual disks in an Oracle appliances. Even though that feature is present trough the <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.oracle.com\/html\/E64082_03\/vmusg-repositories-vdisks-edit.html\">OVM Manager<\/a>, most of the Oracle appliances doesn&#8217;t have any OVM Manager deployed on it. Therefore if you un-sparse your virtual disk by mistake, you are on your own. <\/p>\n<p>This is a note on how to sparse virtual disks which are un-sparse.<\/p>\n<h2>Stop I\/Os on the virtual disk<\/h2>\n<p>First, ensure the VM using the disk is stopped:<br \/>\n<code>xm shutdown {VM_NAME}<\/code><\/p>\n<p>For instance:<br \/>\n<code>xm shutdown exac01db01.domain.local<\/code><\/p>\n<h2>Sparse disk<\/h2>\n<p><code><br \/>\ndd if={PATH_TO_DISK_TO_BE_SPARSED} of={PATH_TO_NEW_SPARSED_DISK} conv=sparsed<br \/>\n<\/code><\/p>\n<p>For instance:<br \/>\n<code><br \/>\ndd if=\/EXAVMIMAGES\/GuestImages\/exac01db01.domain.local\/vdisk_root_01.img<br \/>\nof=\/staging\/vdisk_root_01.img<br \/>\nconv=sparsed<br \/>\n<\/code><\/p>\n<h2>Move disk to former location<\/h2>\n<p>After the sparsing operation finished, copy the disk back to their former location:<br \/>\n<code><br \/>\n# Retrieve the disks path:<br \/>\ncat \/EXAVMIMAGES\/GuestImages\/{VM_NAME}\/vm.cfg | grep disk<br \/>\n# Copy each disk back to its location:<br \/>\nmv \/staging\/{DISK_NAME}.img \/EXAVMIMAGES\/GuestImages\/{VM_NAME}\/{DISK_NAME}.img<br \/>\n<\/code><\/p>\n<p>For instance:<br \/>\n<code><br \/>\nmv \/staging\/vdisk_root_01.img \/EXAVMIMAGES\/GuestImages\/exac01db01.domain.local\/vdisk_root_01.img<br \/>\n<\/code><\/p>\n<h2>Start back the VM<\/h2>\n<p>Then you can start back the VM which use the new disk:<br \/>\n<code>xm create \/EXAVMIMAGES\/GuestImages\/{VM_NAME}\/vm.cfg<\/code><\/p>\n<p>I hope this helps and please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/fr\/contact\/\">contact us<\/a> or comment below should you need more details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For some reason, you may need to sparse OVM virtual disks in an Oracle appliances. Even though that feature is present trough the OVM Manager, most of the Oracle appliances doesn&#8217;t have any OVM Manager deployed on it. Therefore if you un-sparse your virtual disk by mistake, you are on your own. This is a&hellip;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-database"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.8 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sparse OVM virtual disks on appliances - dbi services | Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How to sparse virtual disk (or any file) of Oracle VM (or an virtual disk type) in one command line.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sparse OVM virtual disks on appliances\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How to sparse virtual disk (or any file) of Oracle VM (or an virtual disk type) in one command line.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"dbi services | Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dbiservices\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-05T03:23:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Oracle Team\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@dbiservices\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@dbiservices\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Oracle Team\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Oracle Team\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/bf7c7eb0bec165183207237c9d0ee1d5\"},\"headline\":\"Sparse OVM virtual disks on appliances\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-05T03:23:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":146,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Database\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/sparse-ovm-virtual-disks-on-appliances\\\/\",\"name\":\"Sparse OVM virtual disks on appliances - 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