Many thanks to David Dionne who has has submitted the following:
Get the WorkBench to your esxi storage via scp or vsphere client
ssh into esxi server or access the console with Alt-F1 over ipmi1.5/2 or from local keyboard and cd into the WB folder
If they’re still zipped do:
for i in *;do unzip “$i”;done
- Convert and consolidate VMDK’s from Workstation to thin provisioning (in this example)
/vmfs/volumes/OpenFiler/GNS3WB58 # vmkfstools -i ‘GNS3 WorkBench.vmdk’ -d thin ‘GNS3 WorkBenchC.vmdk’
- Edit vmxf file to reflect the new consolidated vmdk name
/vmfs/volumes/OpenFiler/GNS3WB58 # sed -i s/WorkBench.vmdk/WorkBenchC.vmdk/ ‘GNS3 WorkBench.vmx’
- (Optional) You can delete all the uneeded vmdk files now if you want
/vmfs/volumes/OpenFiler/GNS3WB58 # rm GNS3\ WorkBench-f* GNS3\ WorkBench.vmdk
- Through vSphere client delete all 3 nics
- Through vSphere client add 3 “VMXNET 3″ nics
Then start up the vm and enjoy
You can probably copy and paste below:
vmkfstools -i ‘GNS3 WorkBench.vmdk’ -d thin ‘GNS3 WorkBenchC.vmdk’ sed -i s/WorkBench.vmdk/WorkBenchC.vmdk/ ‘GNS3 WorkBench.vmx’ rm GNS3\ WorkBench-f* GNS3\ WorkBench.vmdk
RedNectar's Blog 
FYI – I had to run ‘vmkload_mod multiextent’ to stop from receiving the following error;
‘Failed to open ‘GNS3 WorkBench.vmdk’: The system cannot find the file specified (25).’
Thanks for the update.
C
I got this error right after issuing vmkfstools -i ‘GNS3 WorkBench.vmdk’ -d thin ‘GNS3 WorkBenchC.vmdk’
Failed to open ‘GNS3 WorkBench.vmdk’: The system cannot find the file specified (25).
Thomas,
I have have never tried this myself, so hopefully someone else may be able to help. The only thing I would do is check that you have ALL the files downloaded (you should have downloaded about 8 files to get the complete package)
Chris
Hey, have a little problem getting this to work? need some help if you have some extra time?
Thanks
Shane
Get this error when i try to start the virtual machine.. Cannot open the disk ‘/vmfs/volumes/50b767d1-19a112f2-981d-001e4fd6bab5/GNS3/GNS3 WorkBench 5.6/GNS3 WorkBench.vmdk’ or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
The system cannot find the file specified
VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk “/vmfs/volumes/50b767d1-19a112f2-981d-001e4fd6bab5/GNS3/GNS3 WorkBench 5.6/GNS3 WorkBench.vmdk”. Verify the path is valid and try again.