qemu-img created VMDK files lead to "Unsupported or invalid disk type 7" on ESXi

Hi, This ticket is a port of https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1828508 with some new information to ensure it's tracked actively.

Host environment

• Operating system: Ubuntu 20.04

• OS/kernel version: 5.150-91-generic

• Architecture: x86

• QEMU flavor: qemu-img

• QEMU version: 8.2.50 (v8.2.0-442-gffd454c6)

• QEMU command line:

  qemu-img convert -p -f vmdk -O vmdk -o adapter_type=lsilogic,subformat=twoGbMaxExtentSparse ../OS-C.vmdk ../OS-C-esx.vmdk

• Variants tried :

  qemu-img convert -p -f vmdk -O vmdk -o adapter_type=lsilogic,subformat=streamOptimized,compat6 ../OS-C.vmdk ../OS-C-esx.vmdk

  qemu-img convert -p -f vmdk -O vmdk -o adapter_type=lsilogic,subformat=streamOptimized ../OS-C.vmdk ../OS-C-esx.vmdk

Emulated/Virtualized environment

• Operating system: VMWare ESXi 7.0
• OS/kernel version:
• Architecture: x86

Description of problem

Trying to start the VM using vmdk converted with qemu-img fails with

Failed to start the virtual machine. Module DevicePowerOn power on failed. Unable to create virtual SCSI device for scsi0:1, '/vmfs/volumes/5cca0155-bdddf31d-2714-00215acbeb1e/AppD-VM01/AppDdisk1-VM01.vmdk' Failed to open disk scsi0:1: Unsupported or invalid disk type 7. Ensure that the disk has been imported.

Steps to reproduce

1. Convert booting OS (in both Qemu and VMWare with the help of drivers) to vmdk
2. Push vmdk file to ESXi datastore
3. Try to boot

Additional information

ESXi seem to use a specific implementation of vmdk, with a name.vmdk file being the descriptor of the virtual disk and a name-flat.vmdk.