Temporary filesystems used by vmware player.

English Virtualization
#1

Hi,

My desktop machine, the host, is running for weeks, hibernating during the night - meaning, I avoid reboots.
I use several virtual machines, with vmplayer, which I hibernate when I finish doing whatever task I needed with each one, using the menu in vmplayer “power/suspend”.

In the host, running oS 13.1, I see these mounts:


df -h
Filesystem                                            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
....
/dev/sdb8                                              60G   41G   20G  68% /data/vmware
....
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf  768M     0  768M   0% /tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110  1.0G     0  1.0G   0% /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d4886-ad29-87fc-0f45-150b0477113b  1.0G     0  1.0G   0% /tmp/vmware-cer/564d4886-ad29-87fc-0f45-150b0477113b
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d0d19-a361-da90-fdce-d28f012a8fbf  1.0G     0  1.0G   0% /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0d19-a361-da90-fdce-d28f012a8fbf
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d9e97-c2e4-49c9-adac-616a2e13b09f  1.3G     0  1.3G   0% /tmp/vmware-cer/564d9e97-c2e4-49c9-adac-616a2e13b09f
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d5669-c863-398d-ff96-2b21728ca00e  1.3G     0  1.3G   0% /tmp/vmware-cer/564d5669-c863-398d-ff96-2b21728ca00e
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d1b71-923b-ad34-00ff-1b1eab98a70d  272M     0  272M   0% /tmp/vmware-cer/564d1b71-923b-ad34-00ff-1b1eab98a70d

and


Telcontar:~ # mount | grep vmware
/dev/sdb8 on /data/vmware type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota)
vmware-vmblock on /var/run/vmblock-fuse type fuse.vmware-vmblock (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other)
vmware-vmblock on /run/vmblock-fuse type fuse.vmware-vmblock (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=786432k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=786432k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=786432k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=786432k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=786432k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=786432k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=786432k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d4886-ad29-87fc-0f45-150b0477113b on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d4886-ad29-87fc-0f45-150b0477113b type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=786432k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d0d19-a361-da90-fdce-d28f012a8fbf on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0d19-a361-da90-fdce-d28f012a8fbf type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d65a4-f3ba-35eb-2dd1-6c7690846caf type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=786432k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d9e97-c2e4-49c9-adac-616a2e13b09f on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d9e97-c2e4-49c9-adac-616a2e13b09f type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1310720k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d9e97-c2e4-49c9-adac-616a2e13b09f on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d9e97-c2e4-49c9-adac-616a2e13b09f type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1310720k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d5669-c863-398d-ff96-2b21728ca00e on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d5669-c863-398d-ff96-2b21728ca00e type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1310720k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d1b71-923b-ad34-00ff-1b1eab98a70d on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d1b71-923b-ad34-00ff-1b1eab98a70d type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=278528k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
/tmp/vmware-cer/564d4886-ad29-87fc-0f45-150b0477113b on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d4886-ad29-87fc-0f45-150b0477113b type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)

See that some of them are mounted several times, and all seem empty.
The assigned size could be the RAM size of the virtual machines.
And they seem unused:


Telcontar:~ # lsof | grep "vmware-cer"
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfsd-fuse file system /run/user/1000/gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfsd-fuse file system /var/run/user/1000/gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
Telcontar:~ #

I guess that vmware player forgets to umount them. Do you think I could simply umount them myself, manually?

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

#2

Carlos,
I might be misunderstanding the hibernation part, but in my experience suspension fills up the caches as it keeps the VM’s right where or close to the state they were left in.
A reboot not a suspend of the VM’s would definitely clear all that up for you.

#3

On 2014-06-19 08:46, Sagemta wrote:
>
> Carlos,
> I might be misunderstanding the hibernation part, but in my experience
> suspension fills up the caches as it keeps the VM’s right where or close
> to the state they were left in.

True, but hibernation of a virtual machine, which is handled by the
virtualization software, not by the guest hibernation feature, goes into
hard disk files under the same directory as the rest of the VM files (at
least in vmware).

(hibernation handled by the VM itself goes into the emulated
hard disk of the VM, the swap partition. It does not work well,
or fails completely, so I don’t use it.)

These mounts are tmpfs in the host, so a reboot of the host would
destroy them - and those virtual machines do work fine even if restored
a month or a year later, after many reboots of the host.

And they are totally empty.

In fact, I umounted them all, then now I restarted one of the VM, and it
works fine. It recreated one of the mounts. In fact, if you hibernate a
VM and restart it again, it mounts again another mount by the same name
in top of the previous mount point, not bothering to umount the previous
one first, or reusing it.

After first hibernation:


> Telcontar:~ # mount | grep vmware-cer ; echo ; df -h /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 ; echo ; l /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110
> /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
>
> Filesystem                                            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110  1.0G     0  1.0G   0% /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110
>
> total 12
> drwxrwxrwt  2 root users    40 Jun 19 10:07 ./
> drwx------ 21 cer  users 12288 Jun 19 10:14 ../
> Telcontar:~ #

After restore:


> Telcontar:~ # mount | grep vmware-cer ; echo ; df -h /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 ; echo ; l /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110
> /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
> /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
>
> Filesystem                                            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110  1.0G  768M  256M  75% /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110
>
> total 12
> drwxrwxrwt  2 root users    40 Jun 19 10:16 ./
> drwx------ 21 cer  users 12288 Jun 19 10:16 ../
> Telcontar:~ #

Notice it says “used = 768 MB”, which is the RAM amount of that VM. But
there is not a file listed. After hibernation, the amount goes to zero.

After second hibernation:


> Telcontar:~ # mount | grep vmware-cer ; echo ; df -h /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 ; echo ; l /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110
> /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
> /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 on /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110 type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1048576k,gid=100)
>
> Filesystem                                            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110  1.0G     0  1.0G   0% /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110
>
> total 12
> drwxrwxrwt  2 root users    40 Jun 19 10:16 ./
> drwx------ 21 cer  users 12288 Jun 19 10:17 ../
> Telcontar:~ # umount /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110
> Telcontar:~ # umount /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110
> Telcontar:~ # umount /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110
> umount: /tmp/vmware-cer/564d0966-a3d8-1625-0116-f8007d212110: not mounted
> Telcontar:~ #

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)