Support for ICH9R and NC7781 on ProLiant DL180 G5

[EdwardS]

We recently downloaded the evaluation disc for VMware ESX 3.5 and it's unable to detect the harddisks and the network card. I've done a search for the ICH9R here on VMTN and apparently users have been able to get it working in SATA mode, so I'm assuming they didn't set it to IDE Legacy mode in the BIOS? I also did a search for the NC7781, and according to HP, it was supported in VMware ESX 3.0.

So, my question basically is whether anyone has managed to install VMware ESX 3.5 on an HP ProLiant DL180 G5? Barring that, does VMware offer any alternatives to VMware Server that will allow us to use more than 3600MB per virtual machine?

[tminc]

I have a similar problem, with the DL 160 G5. The installer says it can't find any supported NICs

(5722s: RH EL 5 - 64 says it uses the tg3 driver, and its supposed to be in 3.5, so, don't get it).

thanks in advance,

Matthew

[girgen]

Apparently, HP DL180 is not supported by VmWare.

By using a separate NIC card and a SmartArray P400, I managed to get almost all the way. VmWare 3.5 is installed and seems to be working. Only, when tyring to actually install a guest OS, it cannot find a hard disk.

It gets as far as reading the installation CD, that part works fine. Trying to install Win XP, it says "Cannot find a hard disk". When trying FreeBSD, it loads the kernel from the CD, and then fails with "BTX Halted".

Since it is not supported by VmWare, I guess we are out of luck?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

With ESX, virtual machines only can use virtual SCSI disks and XP doesn't include the drivers for that. See this thread on how to get around that - http://communities.vmware.com/message/819716?tstart=0.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Your post has been moved to the VI: ESX 3.5 forum

Dave Mishchenko

VMware Communities User Moderator

[plmc]

I'm also trying to evaluate ESX 3.5 on two DL180 G5s. I'm using local SATA drives and have tried using the service console to edit /etc/vmware/pciid/ata_piix.xml to include the DL180-specific device ID (based on instructions ). I added this to the Intel vendor section (8086).

<device id="2920:103c:31fe">
<vmware label="scsi">
<driver>ata_piix</driver>
<vmware>
<name>HP DL180 G5 integrated 4 port SATA</name>
</device>

I then ran esxcfg-pciid and then esxcfg-boot -p but even after boot I get errors mounting the root filesystem. I am able to confirm that the proper PCI IDs have been added to the initrd's config files.

I have SATA RAID mode disabled and the installer sees the devices just fine. After some research it seems that this hardware is not "officially" supported but it doesn't seem to be different from other working ICH9 controllers (different device ID perhaps but the service console works using the ata_piix driver). There doesn't seem to be a way in the BIOS to select native or legacy SATA modes.

Per the ESX 3.5 whitebox table it seems like this should work... am I missing something or should I get new hardware? I also tried 3i but post-install I had the same error mounting the root filesystem (but haven't tried the PCIID hack yet).

I've seen some other posts mention using an HTTP-based install (), so I'll give this a shot with a USB DVD drive and see if there are any differences versus using the installed (SATA/PATA) DVD drive.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Welcome to the VMware Community forums. For the PCI ID, did you get that from the SATA MUD thread or from your server with the lspci command?

ESXi uses a different method for the PCI database so you can't edit files on it as you would with ESX. You have to create a custom oem.tgz file from the install CD.

[plmc]

I got the device ID using lspci. The vendor ID and device ID were already listed in ata_piix.xml, but I assume that because HP uses a sub-vendor and (I assume) sub-device ID such that the generic module wasn't getting properly matched to the HP-branded device.

I tried this hack with both ESX and ESXi, but neither seemed to work. I also tried using a Linux live CD to chroot into the service console environment and when I ran esxcfg-boot and it gave quite a bit more output. I can post that output when I get into work tomorrow.

I also tried replicating the XML used by some of the other drives where a <table> tag is used, but that didn't seem to make a difference.

My attempts to use a USB DVD drive to install didn't seem to make a difference either... so my task for tomorrow will be digging into the HP documentation to see if their BIOS allows disabling "legacy" IDE/SATA mode.

[plmc]

Seems the verbose output from esxcfg-boot was due to my not mounting /var/log into the chroot environment (normally it writes to /var/log/vmware/esxcfg-boot.log). I've attached this file as well as the updated /etc/vmware/esx.conf.

[plmc]

So the problem at hand may not have been directly related to the ICH9 support or hacking PCI config files. After reviewing the boot scripts and the kernel output after a failed boot, it seemed like the /proc/vmware directory wasn't getting populated (although it did seem that /proc was getting mounted) as I was getting errors about /proc/vmware/pci not existing among other errors. Just prior to that, there were a large number of APIC-related messages. On a whim I added "noapic" as a kernel parameter via GRUB and this time the init scripts did seem to work and the VMWare kernel seems to have started. I'm currently reinstalling and will see if it works out of the box if I add "noapic".

[plmc]

So I can confirm that the HP DL180 G5 works out of the box if during your install, you use advanced boot parameters and add "noapic".

Without this option, I was getting errors such as the following:

IRQ: 153: Irq 151: apic 0 pin -1 vector 0x0 action NO

This was repeated with the same "IRQ: 153" prefix with the "Irq xxx" number changing. Then the console reports:

WARNING: IRQ: 343: Likely BIOS error

Then the VMWare init scripts start loading and there are several messages such as:

cp: /proc/vmware/log: No such file or directory

cp: /proc/vmware/pci: No such file or directory

Using the "noapic" kernel parameter gets past these errors, although VMware does warn me that it's using PIC instead of APIC.

[plmc]

Well, a follow up where I get to put my tail between my legs. I just got a bunch of new servers and confused the model numbers. I was testing with an HP DL320 G5p, not a DL180 G5. I'm using the DL180 to run OpenFiler. The upside is that the DL320 G5p does work with the "noapic" option (at least for evaluation and prototyping).

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Did running noapic eliminate the issue with the sub-vender / device ID on SATA controller?

[plmc]

When using the "noapic" option, I did not need to add the sub-vendor PCI ID to get ESX to boot properly.

[girgen]

When using a SmartArray400 and a separate NIC that is supported, the DL 180 now works fine, bu ony for 32-bit guests. 64-bit OS:s cannot be installed at all. Ubuntu says "this is not a 64 bit machine" and FreeBSD the more subtle "Halted on BTX".

But 32 bits work fine, which is OK for me.

[kdmh]

I'm looking to use the DL180's in my test lab. Have a separate NIC and P400. For the 64 bit issue, did you turn on the Intel Virtualization Technology on for the processors in the BIOS? I used to have problems with the DL380's using 64 bit until we enabled VT on the CPUs.

[quicknetsv]

I have about reached the end of my rope. I was glad to see that you were using the DL320 G5p as that is what I have. Even though I have added the parameter on the kernel, it stills fails to mount! I was evaluating ESX to see if it would make server setup easier as advertised, but I have already wasted two days -- the installer comes up, recognizes all the hardware, installs the system as far as I can tell, and then fails with a "failed to mount root system" or some such message!

Arrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!!! When I give up, it will be for good! I am not going to fight this battle much longer!

It doesn't help that I am not a Linux expert.

It doesn't help that the eval guide says nothing about what to do it it fails to start.

It doesn't help that the software simply will install but not run on the brand new server.

It doesn't help that when it fails, you are thrown out to a Linux maintenance shell with no direction of what to try next.

It doesn't help to go through debug mode

It doesn't help to go to the mode where the screen looks funky but you can say "CONFIGURE" on all the devices it recognizes!

It doesn't help that a non-linux expert can't figure out how to read the dang install logs to see where all this crap went wrong!!

There is NOTHING, helpful about this software, the guide, the readmes, the lack of documentation, or messages not displayed when it fails to run. Man, I am ticked off that I have wasted this much time.

There, I feel better now.

[quicknetsv]

I knew if I dug hard enough, I might find something -- yeah, I know you all don't care. But the noapic did not work for me, neither did "noapic" including the quotes. Finally, I ran across a solution to the problem where I had to enter "esx noapic" without the quotes. That did the trick, I am now running ESX on my non-supported HP DL320 G5p server... did not attempt to play with the built-in RAID cuz it didn't not see the drive at all when I first tried it. I gave up on that real fast.

Now, since that worked, and since it is my birthday -- I am leaving early to try the "fix" I found for my car on the internet last night!! With all this computerized stuff, what would we ever do without Google and User Communities. BTW, whatever happened to CompuServe? That is what I cut my computer teeth on while learing to install Novell 2.2.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

With your ICH9R controller you'll have to put it in non-RAID mode within the BIOS. To fix the mounting root failed error take a look at the instructions here - http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3.5/SATA_mounting_root_failed.html.

[Bernikm]

Dear quicknetsv;

I have the same problem installing ESXi 3.5 on HP Proliant DL320G5 SmartArrayE200 controler with 2xSATA drives. If you're so kind, and please let me know, where and how can I add/edit ESXi configuration (since ESXi doesn't have service console) with this "esx noapic"?

Thank you in advance,Regards,Miha