No tape drive inside VM with ESXi 4.1?

[Primetime_de]

Hi,

I just noticed in my test lab that I can't add my tape drive (Tandberg LTO-3 on Adaptec 29320) to my VMs.

I speak about the "old" way, not pass-through.

In the storage adapter tab no device is recognized at the Adaptec controller.

With ESX 4.0U2 this works fine.

Can anyone confirm this?

Best regards,

Christian

[torbenxpc]

We had this problem too.

After upgrading or new installs we were having problem getting backup software to operate with the tape drive.

Even so, the tape drive appears correctly in device manager in windows, but if you take a look at the eventvwr after running some commands from the backup software, you will se some warning regarding the scsi raid port, or LSI .

Vmware does not support the use of SAS since version 4 for tape drives, how ever this has been working flawless until 4.1.

Seems that there is a newer driver for a lot of hardware and there might be a bug in one of them, but since there is no support for SAS tape drives, i would suggest either to downgrade to 4U2 or use hardware passthrough in 4.1.

But you need to know the limitations of both scenarios before you choose either of them.

For single host without need for vMotion etc. i would go with hardware passthrough in 4.1, since 4.1 has more improvements over 4U2.

If you have multiple hosts in a HA or vmotion system, you might wanna find a better solution than to lock a VM to a single host, at least its not recommended by vmware and far from best practise.

One last thing, make sure you server hardware is supported by vmware for passthrough !!!

[Coinspinnr]

This is the way that we finally fixed it

Tape Drive support in ESXi 4.1 using adaptec 29320LPE Controller

In VCenter or VSphere client verify that the tape drive path under storage adapters shows a dead path to the tape drive and or changer

To fix the dead path issue

Enable local and remote support via the ESXi 4.1 console

Alt F1

Login as root

Run the following command

esxcli nmp satp addrule --satp VMW_SATP_LOCAL --driver="aic79xx" --description="Specific rule for Adaptec Card"

Reboot the ESX server

login to vcenter or vsphere client and you should now see your SCSI tape drives

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you are using a tape changer

In the Adaptec BIOS, you need to change the option to enable multiple LUN support for the SCSI ID of the changer in order for windows to recognize the tape drive and changer properly. When you reboot and the adapter controller initializes instead of seeing 1 device, it should show 2 the tape drive and the changer.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/VMWare/Q_26389860.html

[LiLo16]

Hi,

official solution from VMware support is exactly as mentioned here:

esxcli nmp satp deleterule --satp VMW_SATP_ALUA --claim-option tpgs_on

Unfortunately no info if this will be set default in an upcoming patch release for 4.1.

I tested this myself with a LSI SCSI Controller built into an HP ML350 G5 - this solution works fine!

Kind regards,

Lothar

[mis_admin]

Hi LiLo16

Thanks for that, worked great after upgrading a couple of HP DL385 G6's with an Adaptec AHA-29320ALP SCSI card (which got changed to ASC-29320LPE), HP 1x8 G2 autoloader and LTO4 drive.

cheers

Zander

[gusstella]

I installed 4.1 on a HP DL585 G2 with a Ultrium 960 and had the problem. Installed vSphere CLI on my PC, ran the command, reboot, and fixed!

[LiLo16]

Hi all,

however, HP SAS drives are not working properly on LSI SAS1064 based controller. As soon as the tape is ejected there are two SCSI erros in the eventlog and ARCserve takes the drive offline. I could not find a solution so far...could you?

Regards,

Lothar

[pwolf]

How did you get your HP 920 SAS on HP SC44ge to work on ESXi 4.1?

I tried the same combination and it does work on ESXi 4.0 and fails on ESXi 4.1. In my understanding the SC44ge is a LSI 1068E and also shown as such under ESXi 4 and during POST., whereas under ESXi 4.1 this changes to SE44Ge and the path to the tape is shown as failed.

My server is HP ML350 G5 and has nothing special added except of Intel quad port GB ethernet adapters.I upgraded the host from 4.0u1 to 4.1 and did not try a fresh install.

Kind regards

Wolfgang

[nechai]

We have two tapes connect to two different Servers. Both tapes disappeared after upgrade ESX 4.0 to 4.1.

HP StorageWorks Ultrium 960 external (LTO3) connected to

SCSI-card HP 64-Bit/133MHz PCI-X 2CH Ultra320 HBA ( 268351-B21 ) shown as

LSI Logic / Symbios Logic ProLiant ML 350 in ESX console

HP StorageWorks Ultrium 1760 external (LTO4) connected to

SCSI-card HP SC11Xe Host Bus Adapter shown as

LSI Logic / Symbios Logic 53c1030 PCI-X Fusion-MPT Dual Ultra320 SCSI in ESX console

Source:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1580855

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1269881#1269881

1. Enter "esxcfg-scsidevs -a" in ESX1 console

ESX1# esxcfg-scsidevs -a

vmhba0 cciss link-n/a block.cciss/c0d0:0 (0:2:1.0) Compaq Computer Corporation Smart Array 6i

vmhba1 mptspi link-n/a pscsi.vmhba1 (0:7:1.0) LSI Logic / Symbios Logic ProLiant ML 350

vmhba2 mptspi link-n/a pscsi.vmhba2 (0:7:1.1) LSI Logic / Symbios Logic ProLiant ML 350

vmhba3 qla2xxx link-up fc.200000e08b849c08:210000e08b849c08 (0:10:1.0) QLogic Corp. ISP2312-based 2Gb Fibre Channel to PCI-X HBA

vmhba4 ata_piix link-n/a ide.vmhba4 (0:0:31.1) Intel Corporation ESB (855GME/875P + 6300ESB) IDE Controller

vmhba32 ata_piix link-n/a ide.vmhba32 (0:0:31.1) Intel Corporation ESB (855GME/875P + 6300ESB) IDE Controller

2. esxcli nmp satp addrule --satp VMW_SATP_LOCAL --driver="mptspi" --description="Specific rule for LSI Logic Card 268351-B21"

3. Restart host

4. Tape ready to use

1. Enter "esxcfg-scsidevs -a" in ESX4 console

ESX4# esxcfg-scsidevs -a

vmhba0 hpsa link-n/a sas.50014380058fd0e0 (0:3:0.0) ...

vmhba1 qla2xxx link-up fc.5001438004c439e1:5001438004c439e0 (0:4:0.0) ...

vmhba2 qla2xxx link-n/a fc.5001438004c439e3:5001438004c439e2 (0:4:0.1) ...

vmhba3 mptspi link-n/a pscsi.vmhba3 (0:8:8.0) ...

vmhba32 bnx2i unbound iscsi.vmhba32 ...

vmhba33 bnx2i unbound iscsi.vmhba33 ...

2. esxcli nmp satp addrule --satp VMW_SATP_LOCAL --driver="mptspi" --description="Specific rule for LSI Logic Card HP SC11Xe"

3. Restart host

4. Tape ready to use

Tape on ESX1 is back in service, ESX4 is pending on reboot this weekend, so I don't know yet, if it really works.

[info7511]

Hi,

this solution worked like a charm for me with ESXi 4.1

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2900 , Intel Xeon E5430 with a Dell PowerVault 124T connected via a PERC 6Gbit/s SAS HBA.

Kind regards,

Sascha

[smsoutthere]

Well this certainly turned into an adventure.

First some background. I needed to upgrade to 4.1 to get the USB passthrough, when I did I lost the tape drive. Being new to ESX this caused me all sorts of panic attacks, but thanks to the forums I found that I was not the only one with an issue like this. I am running ESX (not ESXi) and only recently learnt about the vSphere Management Assistant (2 weeks ago on a course actually).

Having run into this post I was relieved, then when I tried the command as listed :

"esxcli nmp satp deleterule --satp VMW_SATP_ALUA --claim-option tpgs_on"

I got the error: "Cannot connect to local host"

Fortunately I found that there was a reply to somene else who had this issue and it told you to specify the server, that was most useful.

So here is the actual command that I ran on the vMA, I have left this unedited so that you can see it in its exact context:

"esxcli --server 192.168.2.10 nmp satp deleterule --satp VMW_SATP_ALUA --claim-option tpgs_on"

Obviously the server is 192.168.2.10 --> if you replace this with your server ip address you should have the same success I did. It will prompt you for a username and password, this would be the root account for your esx server.

After that it was easy, I went to the ESX Host, rescanned the HBA and it found my tape drive, for which I am very grateful.

I have one question remaining though: Will this stay persistent through reboots or will I have to do this again? If you know the answer I would appreciate a reply, if not I am sure to find out one of these days as power failures are a regular occurance.

Thanks to all who posted thoughts and ideas on this, without your input I may never have found an answer.

To all:

Have a great day!!!

Sean

[smoooth]

I have the same problem with my HP DL380 G5 (ESXi 4.1) and an external HP StorageWorks 448 Ultrium-2 tape drive.

The tape drive is attached with a eSAS cable to the HP Smart Array P800 host adapter. The RAID hard drives are attached to this controller too, they work fine. In the storage adapter tab only the "Local VMware Disk" (RAID) is recognized at the Smart Array controller.

Does anyone know, if it's possible to get my type drive working with ESX4.1?

[ThomasBalder]

Hey Smooth,

I have pretty much the exact same hardware, and If you type this in the console and reboot your host it should work:

1. Enter "esxcfg-scsidevs -a" in ESX1 console

ESX1# esxcfg-scsidevs -a

vmhba0 cciss link-n/a block.cciss/c0d0:0 (0:2:1.0) Compaq Computer Corporation Smart Array 6i

vmhba1 mptspi link-n/a pscsi.vmhba1 (0:7:1.0) LSI Logic / Symbios Logic ProLiant ML 350

vmhba2 mptspi link-n/a pscsi.vmhba2 (0:7:1.1) LSI Logic / Symbios Logic ProLiant ML 350

vmhba3 qla2xxx link-up fc.200000e08b849c08:210000e08b849c08

(0:10:1.0) QLogic Corp. ISP2312-based 2Gb Fibre Channel to PCI-X HBA

vmhba4 ata_piix link-n/a ide.vmhba4

(0:0:31.1) Intel Corporation ESB (855GME/875P + 6300ESB) IDE

Controller

vmhba32 ata_piix link-n/a ide.vmhba32

(0:0:31.1) Intel Corporation ESB (855GME/875P + 6300ESB) IDE

Controller

2. esxcli nmp satp addrule --satp VMW_SATP_LOCAL --driver="mptspi" --description="Specific rule for LSI Logic Card 268351-B21"

3. Restart host

4. Add the tape drive as a new scsi device on your client, and then it's visible in server 2008 R2 (x64). It doesn't fully recognize it so you will have to tell server 2008 to use the LTO drivers (manually select that from the list)

I'm not sure if the tape is visible, but I'm waiting for backup exec to arrive so I can install that software. But I have pretty good confidence.

Tnx to Neshai for the correct (hp) command line!

[nettercy]

Well here's my setup:

hp 380 DL G5 with a Smart Array P400 SAS controller

esxi 4.1

Ultrium 1760 LTO-4 SAS

for some reason none of the suggestions so far work. Anyone?

Thx and regards

[nettercy]

Update:

added an SC44Ge SAS HBA and connected the tape drive to it. Works great!

[nettercy]

updated firmware of tape drive to U57D from U52D and got royally *****!!! after tons of searching found:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19511-01/CRCM2166/CRCM2166.pdf (old but very informative)

and that hp library and tape tools utility does not run under a vm (which is what I used to update the damn firmware), although the drive states the update as succesfull now it won't work under a windows 2008 r2 vm. I'll try the satp ALUA rule next. Will post results.

[nettercy]

yeap the

esxcli nmp satp deleterule --satp VMW_SATP_ALUA --claim-option tpgs_on

rule did the trick

recap:

HP Proliant 380 G5 with esxi 4.1 latest pacth level build 320137

added SC44Ge HBA

connected Ultrium 1760 LTO-4 SAS to said HBA

Updated firmware to U57D (used HP Storageworks Library and Tape Tools 4.11 - took 4 hours for the drive to finish flashing! don't do it from inside a vm)

run

esxcli nmp satp deleterule --satp VMW_SATP_ALUA --claim-option tpgs_on

on ssh

rebooted esxi

added scsci device HP Tape to win 2008 r2 vm

installed drivers in vm

now running backup looking ok!

[willismatthew]

When I run esxcli nmp satp deleterule --satp VMW_SATP_ALUA --claim-option tpgs_on I get Missing required parameters --satp-rule.  How to do I fix this?

[Coinspinnr]

Here are the procedures I have used to get HP taspe drives/libraries to work using and adaptec 29320lpe controller

Tape Drive support in ESXi 4.1 using adaptec 29320LPE Controller

In VCenter or VSphere client verify that the tape drive path under storage adapters shows a dead path

To fix the dead path issue

Enable local and remote support via console

Alt F1

Login as root

Run the following command

esxcli nmp satp addrule --satp VMW_SATP_LOCAL --driver="aic79xx" --description="Specific rule for Adaptec Card"

If you are using a tape changer

In the Adaptec BIOS, you need to change the option to enable multiple LUN support for the SCSI ID of the changer in order for windows to recognize the tape drive and changer properly.

In Backup Exec  virtual machine properties set the SCSI id of the tape drive to the same  id that is used by the changer. The changer can use any other available SCSI ID

[willismatthew]

I am trying to add a SAS tap drive to the vm.  I am using a perc H800 sas card and it is not working properly.  I believe it uses that megaraid_sas driver.  So how would I correct this issue under this scenario?  Thanks

[4Ransom]

I need to attach a SCSI DLT-S4 tape drive to my ESXi 4.1 u1 host. I have not yet bought a card for it. Can anybody recommend a pci-e card that should mostly work out of the box, meaning I wont need to run the above commands to get it to work? Is there even such a thing, or will I need to do this for any SCSI card I buy?

Thanks!