mounting snapshot lun

[vmw9]

I need to restore something from a snashop lun.

So I went to the volume and set the snapshot online

Then rescanned my hosts in vsphere and tried to add it with the option of assign new signature.

but keep getting an error saying an unknown error has occcured.

any idea?

[ntriantos42]

Hi Tony,

Most likely what is happening is the Snapshot is online but it's not writable. In order to mount a snapshot of a VMFS filesystem, as you correctly pointed out, you'll need to Re-signature thus the snapshot needs to be writable as well. What you want to do is:

1) create a clone from the existing Snapshot

2) Host Rescan

3) Add Storage

4) Select the cloned volume

5) Add new Signature

The snapshot will mount as "Snap-xxxxxxxx-Original-Datastore-Label"

[vmw9]

I tried cloning the snapshot lun but when i go to add lun, it showed 2 luns available to add and only gave the format lun option

[ntriantos42 · Accepted solution]

Hi Tony,

Hi Tony,

  Assuming you're running ESXi 4.0 or above and the LUN is a clone of an existing VMFS datastore and not an RDM, you should have 3 options: a) Format b) Assign New Signature c) Keep existing Signature

Here's the process

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1011387

Additionally, you may want to place a quick call into the Support center. It should be pretty straight forward to get to the bottom of this.

Cheers

Nick

[Nick_Dyer]

+1 to the above.

I'd also recommend doing the process of cloning the snapshot through the vCenter plugin (available from NimbleOS 2.1.4.0 and above), as it will create the clone, mount it up, resignature the datastore and make it available for you in a 1-click process.

[MigWell]

i have the same issue.  i created the volume from a snapshot, and when i try to add storage, the only option listed is format.  the other two are greyed out.

[Lien Mock]

Make sure you uncheck the Snapshots box when presenting the volume, that way only one copy is being presented to VMware, this is an issue I've seen as they are both on by default.