VM image file as a sparse file on Oracle VM Server

(Doc ID 807381.1)

Last updated on MAY 12, 2009

Applies to:

Oracle VM - Version: 2.1 to 2.1.2
This problem can occur on any platform.

Symptoms

Sometimes you can see a difference in the size of VM images (System.img) between "ls -alk" and "du -s".

Ex. In this case, System.img seems to be about 8GB with "ls -alk", but "du -s" shows just about 1GB.

# cd /OVS/594EFD07F7EC49B7B64C13958C52031C/running_pool/4516_EL5U2 
# ls -alk System.img 
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8388608 Apr 16 10:32 System.img 
# du -s System.img 
1010684 System.img

Changes

An ext3 filesystem is used for the VM image repository.

Cause

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