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createvmdk

The purpose of this tool is to create vmdk files that wrap raw disks/partitions. It substitutes for handcrafting vmdks or using the Oracle-VirtualBox's vboxmanage tool or the VMware's Virtual Disk Manager. Installing virtualbox,for example, takes 200Mb of space, which is overkill for just wanting to create vmdks.

win:
vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename E:\path\to\file.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive2
createvmdk.sh -f E:\path\to\file.vmdk -c fullDevice -x \\.\PhysicalDrive2 

lnx:
vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sda
createvmdk.sh -f /path/to/file.vmdk -c fullDevice -x b:/dev/sda 

vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions 1,5
createvmdk.sh -f /path/to/file.vmdk -c partitionedDevice -x b:/dev/sda:1,5

Disclaimer

  • Use at your own peril
  • Not well tested
  • There may be bugs
  • No-one is responsible for any damages

The identifying of disk partitions and having correct precise partition tables are important. It is easy to make mistakes, overwrite sectors in the wrong place, screw up filesystems and lose data residing in those sectors.

Contribute bug fixes and feature additions

Contributed patches are welcome as long as they improve the tool while preserving the functionality.

Notes

  • bash and pwsh are very commonly installed shell tools on both windows/linux systems. Most functionality of the createvmdk tool, such as partitionedDevice, lay in linux, and bash was relatively more ubiqutous at the time.Hence, the choice to write this tool as a bash-script.

Instructions to run

 win:
   pwsh: 
     & 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\bash.exe' './createvmdk.sh' -h
 lnx: 
   bash:
     bash ./createvmdk.sh -h

Dependencies/requires

  • Win: git-bash 2.28.0 (bash-5), Powershell 7.0.3 (pwsh), libyal/libvmdk (vmdkinfo), qemu (qemu-img)
  • Linux: bash-5, libvmdk (vmdkinfo), qemu (qemu-img), util-linux (blockdev, blkid)

Command line options

createvmdk.sh: command line tool to create vmdk files
  Usage:
    createvmdk.sh -f <output_filename> -m <mach_type> -c <vmdk_createtype> <options>
 -h     print this help
 -f <output_filename>     necessary, the output vmdk filename, must have extension '.vmdk'
 -l <log_filename>        optional, the output vmdk filename, defaults to $TEMP/vmdkcreate.log
 -m <machine_type>        optional, autodetects, functions as a check, valid_values=win|lnx
 -c <vmdk_createtype>     necessary, valid_values=fullDevice/partitionedDevice
 -x extent information    necessary, Extents can be of various subtypes
    ex
      For vmdk_createtype fullDevice, only one -x option is to be specified, which is the full-device name
        -m win -c fullDevice -x "\\.\PhysicalDrive2"
        -m lnx -c fullDevice -x /dev/sdc
      For vmdk_createtype partitionedDevice, order matters, the -x option may be repeated to add more partitions
        This vmdk_createtype is suported only for linux
        -m lnx -c partitionedDevice -x CreateSubType:Target:ExtentInfo:Options
             CreateSubType: x=Zero/ b=BlockDevice/ f:Monolithic_flat/ s:Monolithic_sparse
             Target: VMDK_File/ Block-device File
               VMDK_File: sparse or flat vmdk-file
             ExtentInfo: PartitionNos and Suffix options
               PartitionNos: comma-separated-partitions, order matters
               Suffix options:
                 'z' indicates to substitute target with a ZERO-createtype extent of the same size
                 'lLuU' indicates to substitute targetname with label, part-label, UUID, partUUID respectively
               A standalone option c, indicates to create a fresh monolithic-flat/sparse vmdk file
            Options: Access,Size,Offset
              Access: RW/ RDONLY/ NOACCESS    default=RW
              Size:   No# of sectors, default inferred from target, required if Target not specified
              Offset: is the sector number in the file/block to start at    default=0
        -m lnx -c partitionedDevice -x z:/dev/sdc:3     A ZERO-createtype extent having the size of sdc3
        -m lnx -c partitionedDevice -x z:::RW,2129921   A read-write-able zero-extent of given size
        -m lnx -c partitionedDevice -x b:/dev/sdc       Use whole block device
        -m lnx -c partitionedDevice -x b:/dev/sdc:3     Wrap only partition 3
        -m lnx -c partitionedDevice -x b:/dev/sdc:1,4,3     Wrap 1,4,3 in that order skipping partition 2
        -m lnx -c partitionedDevice -x b:/dev/sdc:1,3-5,6   Wrap partitions 1,3,4,5,6
        -m lnx -c partitionedDevice -x b:/dev/sdc:1,2-4z,6  Map partitions 2,3,4 to a ZERO createtype extent
        -m lnx -c partitionedDevice -x f:filepath.vmdk::    Wrap existing vmdk monolithic flat file as a partition
        -m lnx -c partitionedDevice -x s:filepath.vmdk:c:   Create and wrap vmdk monolithic sparse file as a partition
 -v     Print the name/version/date/author/email of vmdkcreate
  The use of some options may require the executables 'bash', 'pwsh', 'qemu-img', 'vmdkinfo', 'blockdev' or 'blkid' to
be present in the PATH

Examples

  1. Windows - CreateType: fullDevice
PS E:\gitrepos\createvmdk> & 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\bash.exe' 'E:/gitrepos/createvmdk/createvmdk.sh' -f E:\tmp\testvc.vmdk -c fullDevice -x "\\.\PhysicalDrive2" 
PS E:\gitrepos\createvmdk> type E:\tmp\testvc.vmdk
#Disk Descriptor File
version=1
encoding="windows-1252"
CID=79ac3c13
parentCID=ffffffff

# vmdk type
createType="fullDevice"

RW 3907029168 FLAT "\\.\PhysicalDrive2" 0

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "ide"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "16383"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.longContentID = "416f042477902c76158b0d0379ac3c13"
ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"
  1. Linux - CreateType: partitionedDevice

Note: in the below example using the whole physical block device /dev/sdd as a partition extent is not a good idea, as real physical devices usually ought to have partition tables. It has been invoked here as such only to illustrate what is possible.

[root@fedora createvmdk]# rm /tmp/testvc* -f 
[root@fedora createvmdk]# ./createvmdk.sh -f /tmp/testvc.vmdk -c partitionedDevice \
-x "b:/dev/sdd::" -x "b:/dev/sdc:1,2z,3-5,7L:"  -x "b:/dev/sdb:1"  
[root@fedora createvmdk]# cat /tmp/testvc.vmdk
#Disk Descriptor File
version=1
encoding="windows-1252"
CID=035e3acb
parentCID=ffffffff

# vmdk type
createType="partitionedDevice"

RW 63 FLAT "/tmp/testvc-pt-flat.vmdk" 0
RW 1985 ZERO
RW 16777216 FLAT "/dev/sdd" 0
RW 192937983 FLAT "/dev/sdc1" 0
RW 2097152 ZERO "/dev/sdc2" 0
RW 2097152 FLAT "/dev/sdc3" 0
RW 2097152 FLAT "/dev/sdc4" 0
RW 195035136 FLAT "/dev/sdc5" 0
RW 195035136 FLAT "/dev/disk/by-partlabel/D1_1600_1623" 0
RW 32765919 FLAT "/dev/sdb1" 0
RW 143 ZERO
RW 33 FLAT "/tmp/testvc-pt-flat.vmdk" 63

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "ide"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "16383"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.longContentID = "6caa371639b74eee042b2d39035e3acb"
ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"
[root@fedora createvmdk]# ls -l /tmp/testvc*.*
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1048576 Aug  9 21:41 /tmp/testvc-pt-flat.vmdk
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root     313 Aug  9 21:41 /tmp/testvc-pt.vmdk
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root     735 Aug  9 21:41 /tmp/testvc.vmdk

Notes on building libyal/libvmdk vmdkinfo

https://github.com/libyal/libvmdk
https://github.com/libyal/libvmdk/wiki/Building

https://repo.msys2.org/distrib/
C:\tmp\Downloads\msys2-i686-latest.exe

https://www.msys2.org/news/#2020-06-29-new-packages
https://www.msys2.org/news/#2020-06-29-new-packagers
[]# pacman-key --init
[]# pacman-key --populate msys2
[]# pacman-key --refresh-keys
[]# curl -O http://repo.msys2.org/msys/x86_64/msys2-keyring-r21.b39fb11-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
[]# pacman -U msys2-keyring-r21.b39fb11-1-any.pkg.tar.xz

[]# pacman -Syu 
[]# pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-gcc mingw-w64-i686-libtool mingw-w64-cross-binutils mingw-w64-i686-gettext autoconf automake vim git pkgconfig intltool make
./autogen.sh

[]# cd /c/tmp
[]# git clone https://github.com/libyal/libvmdk

[]# # create a.sh file for compiling
[]# cat a.sh
#!/bin/sh

CC=/mingw32/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-gcc
CXX=/mingw32/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-g++
AR=/mingw32/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-gcc-ar
OBJDUMP=/opt/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/objdump
RANLIB=/mingw32/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-gcc-ranlib
STRIP=/opt/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/strip
MINGWFLAGS="-mwin32 -mconsole -march=i586 "
CFLAGS="$MINGWFLAGS"
CXXFLAGS="$MINGWFLAGS"

CC=$CC CXX=$CXX AR=$AR OBJDUMP=$OBJDUMP RANLIB=$RANLIB STRIP=$STRIP ./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/e/apps_win/libvmdk --enable-winapi=yes

CC=$CC CXX=$CXX AR=$AR OBJDUMP=$OBJDUMP RANLIB=$RANLIB STRIP=$STRIP CFLAGS="$CFLAGS" CXXFLAGS="$CXXFLAGS" make



[]# ldd /e/apps_win/libvmdk/bin/vmdkinfo.exe
        ntdll.dll => /c/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/ntdll.dll (0x77700000)
        KERNEL32.DLL => /c/WINDOWS/System32/KERNEL32.DLL (0x75800000)
        KERNELBASE.dll => /c/WINDOWS/System32/KERNELBASE.dll (0x75b80000)
        libvmdk-1.dll => /e/apps_win/libvmdk/bin/libvmdk-1.dll (0x70300000)
        msvcrt.dll => /c/WINDOWS/System32/msvcrt.dll (0x76d80000)
        libwinpthread-1.dll => /mingw32/bin/libwinpthread-1.dll (0x64b40000)
        zlib1.dll => /mingw32/bin/zlib1.dll (0x63080000)
        libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll => /mingw32/bin/libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll (0x6eb40000)

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