Hi, all,

I have converted our two Ubuntu/VMware server machines to ESXi resulting in a spectacular increase in interactive performance. The systems are Fujitsu-Siemens TX150 S2 and S4, respectively. They are not officially supported, but all the important components like LSI SCSI RAID and network are, so I had to give it a try ...

I have only one minor oddity remaining:

Whenever I reboot or shut down the systems after running ESXi, one of them completely hangs on next boot, the other one with the newer mainboard displays "baseboard management controller error", recovers, but afterwards hangs when ESXi tries to load ipmi_si_drv.

The systems can be cured by completely disconnecting power to reset the BMC. Works every time, reproduceably.

Is there a VMware kernel setting or similar to keep ESXi from messing with the BMC at all? I don't really need the system health info, which doesn't give consistent readings, anyway. Possibly I can disable the ipmi_si_drv module? I already enabled the "hidden" ssh access and I am fluent with vi

These are internal development machines, otherwise I would use supported hardware and licensed ESX.

Fujitsu-Siemens does provide a ESX/ESXi support CD, but it contains only RPMs - I figure, they are not installable on ESXi?

Thanks for any insight,

Patrick