Vmfs-tools Jun 2026

| VMFS Version | VMware Product | vmfs-tools Support | |--------------|----------------|--------------------| | VMFS 3 | ESX/ESXi 4.x | Full read support | | VMFS 5 | ESXi 5.x | Full read support | | VMFS 6 | ESXi 6.x/7.x | Partial read support (basic structures work, some advanced features may fail) |

In the world of virtualization, VMware's Virtual Machine File System () is a cornerstone technology for managing high-performance storage for virtual machines. However, because VMFS is a proprietary, clustered file system designed for ESXi hosts, accessing its data from a standard Linux environment can be challenging. This is where vmfs-tools becomes an indispensable utility for sysadmins and forensic investigators. What is vmfs-tools?

The suite typically consists of several core utilities that handle different aspects of file system interaction: vmfs-tools

: The early days, where vmfs-tools (version 0.2.1) felt right at home.

To understand the importance of vmfs-tools , one must first understand the isolation of the VMFS file system. Unlike standard file systems such as NTFS, ext4, or FAT32, which are widely supported across various operating systems, VMFS is a "black box" to standard Linux or Windows installations. If an ESXi host fails, the underlying hardware malfunctions, or an administrator simply removes a drive to copy data on a separate workstation, the attached storage is rendered unreadable without the ESXi kernel. In a disaster scenario, the inability to mount a file system transforms a minor technical hiccup into a catastrophic data loss event. vmfs-tools shatters this isolation by providing a user-space driver that allows Linux systems to read VMFS volumes without requiring the full VMware hypervisor. | VMFS Version | VMware Product | vmfs-tools

.log : Execution logs containing historical data about the VM's state. Limitations to Consider

# Identify VMFS partition sudo parted -l What is vmfs-tools

sudo vmfsfsck /dev/sdb2