6.5

Table Of Contents
Figure 42. Virtual Machines Accessing Different Types of Storage
iSCSI array
VMFS VMFS
LAN LAN
iSCSI
hardware
initiator
ethernet
NIC
Host
requires TCP/IP connectivity
software
initiator
NAS
appliance
NFS
LAN
ethernet
NIC
fibre
array
VMFS
VMFS
LAN
fibre
channel
HBA
local
ethernet
SCSI
You can use vCLI commands to manage the virtual machine le system and storage devices.
n
VMFS - Use vmkfstools to create, modify, and manage VMFS virtual disks and raw device mappings.
See “Managing the Virtual Machine File System with vmkfstools,” on page 30 for an introduction and
the vSphere Storage documentation for a detailed reference.
n
Datastores - Several commands allow you to manage datastores and are useful for multiple protocols.
n
LUNs - Use esxcli storage core or vicfg-scsidevs commands to display available LUNs and
mappings for each VMFS volume to its corresponding partition. See “Examining LUNs,” on
page 45.
n
Path management - Use esxcli storage core or vicfg-mpath commands to list information about
Fibre Channel or iSCSI LUNs and to change a path’s state. See “Managing Paths,” on page 50. Use
the ESXCLI command to view and modify path policies. See “Managing Path Policies,” on
page 54.
n
Rescan - Use esxcli storage core or vicfg-rescan adapter rescan to perform a rescan operation
each time you recongure your storage setup. See “Scanning Storage Adapters,” on page 66.
n
Storage devices - Several commands manage only specic storage devices.
n
NFS storage - Use esxcli storage nfs or vicfg-nas to manage NAS storage devices. See
“Managing NFS/NAS Datastores,” on page 57.
n
iSCSI storage - Use esxcli iscsi or vicfg-iscsi to manage both hardware and software iSCSI. See
Chapter 5, “Managing iSCSI Storage,” on page 69.
n
Software-dened storage - vSphere supports several types of software-dened storage.
n
Virtual SAN storage - Use commands in the esxcli vsan namespace to manage Virtual SAN. See
“Monitoring and Managing Virtual SAN Storage,” on page 60.
Chapter 4 Managing Storage
VMware, Inc. 43