For newer Linux systems, you can use guestmount to mount the third partition within a VMDK image:
guestmount -a xyz.vmdk -m /dev/sda3 --ro /mnt/vmdk
Alternatively, to autodetect and mount an image (less reliable), you can try:
guestmount -a xyz.vmdk -i --ro /mnt/vmdk
Do note that the flag --ro simply mounts the image as read-only; to mount the image as read-write, just replace it with the flag --rw.
Installation
guestmount is contained in following packages per distro:
- Ubuntu:
libguestfs-tools - OpenSuse:
guestfs-tools - CentOS / Fedora:
libguestfs-tools-c
Troubleshooting
error: could not create appliance through libvirt
$ guestmount -a file.vmdk -i --ro /mnt/guest libguestfs: error: could not create appliance through libvirt. Try running qemu directly without libvirt using this environment variable: export LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND=direct Original error from libvirt: Cannot access backing file '/path/to/file.vmdk' of storage file '/tmp/libguestfssF6WKX/overlay1.qcow2' (as uid:107, gid:107): Permission denied [code=38 int1=13]
Solution: use LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND=direct, as suggested:
LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND=direct guestmount -a file.vmdk -i --ro /mnt/guest
fusermount: user has no write access to mountpoint
LIBGUESTFS_BACKEND=direct guestmount -a file.vmdk -i --ro /mnt/guest/ fusermount: user has no write access to mountpoint /mnt/guest libguestfs: error: fuse_mount failed: /mnt/guest/, see error messages above
Solution: use sudo, or change file permissions on the mountpoint