Scan Datastore for Unknown Files Task

[keithkleiman]

In v6 I notice that when I run the "Scan Datastore for Unknown Files" task, it will identify vmdk files. Can someone explain why vmdk files are considered an unknown file? Aren't vmdk files managed by vCenter? I presume that the Veeam VMware: Datastore Unknown Files Analysis is including these files as well.

Thanks!

[Alec King]

Hi Keith,

Our Scan Datastore task, and the Unknown Files monitor, will identify ANY file which is 'not known to vCenter'.

So, VMDK files could be included in the output- if they are orphaned VMDK files. For example, virtual machines were removed from the vCenter inventory, but not deleted from the Datastore. Then those VMDK would be orphaned - and wasting space on your datastore. Exactly what the monitor and task were designed to find

Are those VMDK files attached to live, running VMs in the vCenter inventory?

Cheers
Alec

[keithkleiman]

I think you may be correct Alec in that the vmdk files might be copies of actual vmdk files of VMs that are running. I will investigate further, but I think that is what is happening in which case this was very good information that the analysis captured!

Also I notice that we have a lot of vswp files that are being called out. Could you explain why these files would be captured since this is a virtual swap file created by vcenter? What actionable item would one of our VMWare sys admins take?

TIA!

[Alec King]

Hi Keith,

Yes - manually copied VMs would also generate 'unknown VMDK files', that would be detected by us. Another good use case!

And possibly the vswp files were also copied - maybe the whole folder for VM(s) got copied, so there would be unknown VMDK, unknown VSWP, multiple files in the same copied folder.
Basically - our monitor/task will only list out the files which vCenter does not list in it's own internal reference (aka the MOB or Managed Object Browser). So if you see VSWP files then they are orphaned in some way too.

Please let me know the results of your investigations!

Cheers
Alec

[G706480]

Hello,

I've installed for the first time the veeam mp for scom and get many 'Veeam VMware: Datastore Unknown Files Analysis' alerts from our datastores.
By re-scanning the datastore for unknown files, the system detected all our in use vmdk files (not orphan and manualy copied).

What can be the reasen ?

Thanks
Luc

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Luc,

Please check that there are no duplicates and that the in use VMDK files are actually the ones that the scan talks about. See above in this thread. Make sure that you compare the path to your in use VMDK files and the path to the unknown files is the same.

Let us know

Cheers
Mike

[Nick van Ogtrop]

I have a similar issue, also with the .vswp files (for which I don't understand why these are 'unknown').
I would like to be able to either exclude the file type, or to extend the cumulative size for the 'unknown' files (I'm guessing this is pegged to 50GB).


Best wishes,
Nick van Ogtrop

[Yan Skoursky]

Hi Nick,

Swap files can be unknown to VC if inside the VMware API the value of SwapFile (property of layout for VM) is equal to "Unset"
You can check how it looks from VMware prospective using Managed Object Browser the link is as follows:
https://<vCenter name>/mob/?moid=<VM ID>&doPath=layout where you need to insert VC address instead of <vCenter name> and ID of VM instead of <VM ID>. The vm id can be found in the OpsMgr console , it's like vm-7190

You can also open support case and we will help you with that.

Regards,
Yan