Re: [Libguestfs] "guestmount --rw" fails but "guestmount --ro" succeeds on Ubuntu 14.04

Thanks for your response Rich. Please see the output of --trace --verbose below.

qemu-system-x86_64: -drive file=agent-disk1.vmdk,cache=writeback,id=hd0,if=none: could not open disk image agent-disk1.vmdk: VMDK version 3 must be read only

Regarding your suggestion to convert the vmdk to some other format, I do not want to do it. A security consultant said by modifying certain files in our VM and restarting the VM, one can gain access to encrypted data in our VM. I want to reproduce it. I am able to mount the VM but not able to modify files since it can be mounted with --ro option only.

> If you want to access a VMware ESX server, then you can use sshfs: > > > https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/tip-use-libguestfs-on-vmware-esx-gu... > > This should work for writes provided that the guest is shut down, and > because it uses VMware's own VMDK drivers it'll be a lot safer. > > Another way is to expose NBD from the VMware server or VMDK file > [using the proprietary VDDK library] and mount using > `-a nbd://example.com' (see guestfish manual for the -a option, which > guestmount also supports).