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9 Replies Last post: Apr 8, 2009 7:09 AM by MrBaba  

ESXi hoses BMC/IPMI, hangs on soft reboot posted: Aug 16, 2008 2:48 AM

Click to view pmhausen's profile Enthusiast 29 posts since
Dec 8, 2006
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

Re: ESXi hoses BMC/IPMI, hangs on soft reboot

1. Aug 19, 2008 5:32 PM in response to: pmhausen
Click to view nick.couchman's profile Champion 4,969 posts since
Jan 13, 2006
Is there any sort of web interface or remote management utility for your BMC? I know Dell's BMC allows you to assign an IP and then they have a remote interface you can download to manage the BMC. I believe it allows for viewing BMC events. If your BMC supports this you may be able to see what sort of event is causing it to hang.

Re: ESXi hoses BMC/IPMI, hangs on soft reboot

3. Aug 20, 2008 1:20 PM in response to: pmhausen
Click to view dhiltgen's profile Enthusiast 28 posts since
Jan 31, 2005

It depends if it's an incompatibility between the driver and BMC or the management software and the BMC.

If it's the latter, you can completely disable CIM (the sub-system which monitors the server health) in the Advanced Settings of the VI client. I don't have a 3.5 system handy at the moment to verify, but if I remember correctly, it's under the vmkernel tree. If the issue is between the driver and the BMC, I'm not aware of an easy mechanism to disable it.

Re: ESXi hoses BMC/IPMI, hangs on soft reboot

4. Aug 20, 2008 1:28 PM in response to: dhiltgen
Click to view Dave.Mishchenko's profile Guru 8,974 posts since
Nov 15, 2005
Do you mean Misc.CimEnabled?
Click to view dhiltgen's profile Enthusiast 28 posts since
Jan 31, 2005
That sounds right. Set to false/zero and on the next boot the CIM functionality will be disabled.

Re: ESXi hoses BMC/IPMI, hangs on soft reboot

7. Jan 13, 2009 8:05 AM in response to: pmhausen
Click to view xxxmisterxx's profile Lurker 2 posts since
Jan 13, 2009
Can you tell me where i can find: Misc.CimEnabled

I have the same problem.

Thnx

Re: ESXi hoses BMC/IPMI, hangs on soft reboot

8. Jan 13, 2009 8:41 AM in response to: xxxmisterxx
Click to view jmbutler99's profile Lurker 4 posts since
Jan 12, 2009
The Misc.CimEnabled setting is under the Configuration tab for the ESX server, Advanced Settings, Misc.

Re: ESXi hoses BMC/IPMI, hangs on soft reboot

9. Apr 8, 2009 7:09 AM in response to: jmbutler99
Click to view MrBaba's profile Enthusiast 74 posts since
Jul 15, 2008

Hello,

I wanna know if someone tried with TX150 S6 ?

I woul install esx3.5 foundation or ESXi3.5 but I cant'

If someone can help me !

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