VMware Cloud Community
ViennaAustria
Contributor
Contributor

ESXi 5.x on new Apple Mac Mini 6,2 Late 2012 *NOT* working

Hello!

I bought one of the new MacMinis, which were presented yesteraday, plugged two 8GiB DD3-1600 modules in (OsX reported 16GiB of memory, as the models before) and tried to install ESXi 5.1 Build 799733. It started promising:

Initializing chipset...

Initializing timing...

Initializing scheduler...

Initializing processors...

Initializing ACPI...

*BANG*

Pink screen! Smiley Sad

NOT_REACHED bora/vmkernel/hardware/intel/vtd.c:3638

cr0=0x8001003d cr2=0x0 cr3=0x449ad500 cr4=0x12c

*PCPU0:4096/bootstrap

PCPU  0: SISISISISISISIS

Code start: 0x41800c600000 VMK uptime: 0:00:00:04.301

and a stackdump.

macmini.png

I tried instalkling 5.0 and 5.0 U1 also, but with the same result.

It is the regular MacMini with an i7 4C 2.3GHz and one 1TB SATA drive (http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD388LL/A with no extras), not the MacMini Server.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

PS1: I was unable to boot the ESXi setup from USB key! Since other USB keys (OsX setup for example) didn't work either, I suspect that there's some EFI boot problem from the new USB3 ports. Booting from CD worked, however.

PS2: on the earlies models we had the problem, that the Alt key wasn't recognized after powering on, when there is an USB hub between the keyboard and the Mac (a KVM switch for example). That seems to be fixed now: whenever I press the Alt key at the powerup chime, I get the Apple "boot menu", even with our KVM switch in between.

338 Replies
elchubi
Contributor
Contributor

Would you please update first post to add a link to the latest ISO file and applicable patches?

Reply
0 Kudos
oturn
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Question for the group...

One of the drives in my Mac Mini is the stock Apple / Hitachi 5K1000 HTS541010A9E662 1TB. When the late 2012 Mini's came out, this was actually the highest performing 1TB physical drive that would fit in the mini. However, it tends to have very high latency. There is only a single Windows Home Server 2011 VM on the drive, but it has latency that sometimes pushes 200ms, with an average around 37ms.

If you are using this drive, so you see these numbers?

If you are using another 1TB drive or above, what latency do you get with an equivalent (fairly busy) VM?

Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have the exact same drive in my MacMini (also late 2012 - 2.6GHz Core i7). How do I test latency? Let me know and I will respond.

Reply
0 Kudos
oturn
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

In the vSphere Client, choose any VM and click on the Performance tab. Switch to "Disk". At the bottom of the screen, click to highlight the "Highest latency" measurement. You'll see the maximum and average values listed in milliseconds. The values would need to be read during a mid to high load, not while idle.

Thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks for the instructions. At the moment my VMs are on the SSD - I have two Hard Disks in my MacMini. I will install a new VM on the slow HD and let you know tomorrow.

By the way for the SSD I am seeing two entries - Write rate and Read rate. For Write rate Maximum is 83 and Average 1.649. And for Read it is 35 and 0.455. Does this make sense? This is a Samsung 840 250GB SSD.

Reply
0 Kudos
oturn
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have two hard drives as well. My other drive is also an SSD.

To see the latency measurement, you might need to click "Chart Options", then under Disk choose "Highest latency".

Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I installed a Fedora VM on the Hitachi 1TB HD and for "Highest Latency" I have the maxium as 203 and average is 3.811.

I also installed a pretty much identical VM on the SSD and that is maxium of 1 and average of 0.006.

Both the VMs have not been used at, just fresh installs. Anyway I hope this information is helpful.

Reply
0 Kudos
oturn
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yes, that is helpful. It looks like high latency on non-SSD consumer drives isn't all that unusual on ESXi. I suppose that is to be expected. Time to get a larger SSD!

Thank you.

Reply
0 Kudos
oturn
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

From the comments on this thread, it appears the patches required for the Mac Mini 6,2 didn't make it into ESXi 5.1 Update 1, which is disapointing.

Can someone please build a custom ISO based on the new release, with the patches integrated?

Thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
lamw
Community Manager
Community Manager

I will see about creating a custom ISO that'll include both fixes, though from my understanding these are still "temp" workarounds and I can only suspect that might have been the reason they didn't make it into the U1 release.

However, for folks hitting the PSOD issue, you can still apply the workaround by specifying the VMkernel boot option as noted at the bottom of the blog article for Mini 6,2 http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2013/04/installing-esxi-51-update-1-on-mac-mini.html

Reply
0 Kudos
telecastle
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Question about the VM datastore location and the VM swap file location.

I've tried to install several Linux based VMs under ESXi running on the Mac Mini's 6,2 (Late 2012) internal drive, and it seems that the performance of every VM degrades dramatically when several VMs are running concurrently. The VMs I use are based on Redhat Enterprise Linux 5, but I also have an OS X Mountain Lion VM running OS X Server as well as a Windows 8 VM. When I installed same VMs on an iSCSI target (a RAID NAS with iSCSI target enabled), it appears that VM performance does not degrade much with several VMs (about 6) running concurrently. Have others notice this performance hit when VMs are installed on the datastore on the internal drive?

I've also noticed that the average read latency from the iSCSI storage path is about 8.41 ms (with all VMs located on the iSCSI datastore), whereas the read latency from the storage path on the internal drive of Mac Mini 6,2 is 15.017 ms (without any VMs installed on the internal drive datastore). On the other hand, the average write latency to the iSCSI storage path is 33.04 ms, whereas the average write latency to the internal drive storage path is 13.69 ms.

Second question is about the location of the guest swap files. By default, the location of each VM's swap file is on the same datastore where the VM is installed. So, in my current environment - because every VM is on the iSCSI datastore - the swap files are also on the iSCSI datastore. Would it be beneficial to move these swap files to the Mac Mini 6,2 internal drive?

Reply
0 Kudos
macXuser
Contributor
Contributor

I installed ESXi 5.1 u1 on My Mac Mini 6,2

I have a question, how to turn the Wifi and bluetooth radio off in the ESXi?

Reply
0 Kudos
Linjo
Leadership
Leadership

I think that can be expected, the hdd in the mac mini is quite small and not very fast.

For each virtual machine you put there it will have less iops to give to the rest.

Either put in a fast disk or use a NAS to store the vm:s.

// Linjo

Best regards, Linjo Please follow me on twitter: @viewgeek If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
Reply
0 Kudos
macXuser
Contributor
Contributor

I tried to passthrough the Mac Mini 6,2 , Wifi , HD Audio, Bluetooth Device , IR Device , Firewire to a Lion VM

Firewire chip can recognised by VM

Wifi card not work all the time, some time it cannot detected when I turn it on/off serval times

Bluetooth , IR Device cannot detected (I passthrough the USB controller, but the controller cannot detected)

HD Audio not working (not detected)

Anyone tried passthrough those device to the Lion VM? My VM is 10.7.5 Lion Server, now I will try to install 10.8.2 Retail version

Reply
0 Kudos
helux
Contributor
Contributor

i am still waiting for a smc fix which will work with vcenter!

how hard is it to create a patch to fix this?

i was helped by a employer of vmware with the previous version, but esxi 5.1u1 still no patch!

i have 2 esxi mac minis. 1 macmini 5,1 and 1 macmini 6,2. both running in a cluster using vcenter.

the mini 6,2 is still on an old version of vmware because of this..... come on vmware, help us out!

Reply
0 Kudos
telecastle
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I've tried to pass through all of those devices via Direct Path I/O in 10.8.2 with ML Server add-on. Wi-Fi worked, Bluetooth worked for a short period of time (I even paired a keyboard to the VM) but then BT crashed not only the VM, but also the ESXi. I had the OS 10.8.2 VM auto power up upon ESXi boot, and thus entered a vicious circle whereby the ESXi would crash on every boot. I was barely able to stop the OS X VM from auto starting and taking down the ESXi on a fourth or fifth boot. I have not tried to test video. When I asked the community why Direct Path IO wasn't working properly, the answer from VMWare was that those devices were never meant for Direct Path IO, and VMWare was not going to try to fix the issues I encountered. The bottom line is Direct Path IO is not a tool for turning your VM into a full fledged workstation with which you communicate directly via keyboard, pointing device, directly attached monitor, sound card, etc.

Sent from my iPhone

Reply
0 Kudos
lamw
Community Manager
Community Manager

Please remember that ESXi on Apple Mac Mini is NOT officially supported, so that should hopefully set the right expectations. Having said that, if you would like to run ESXi 5.1u1 w/SMC fix, you can find the patched custom ISO here virtuallyGhetto: Installing ESXi 5.1 Update 1 on Mac Mini is Now a Breeze! (No Custom ISO/patches Ne... I'm hopeful we can get the patch integrated into a future release, but this is not something that VMware officially supports

Reply
0 Kudos
discostur
Contributor
Contributor

Hey,

can anybody give me a short instruction how to install the USB nic driver from trickster? I downloaded the files but i don't know how to install them ...

Thanks

Greets

Kilian

Reply
0 Kudos
ronnutter
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have ESXi 5.1 running on two Mac Mini's.  The recommended way I found was to install VMware Fusion on the Mac Mini and then install ESXi as a VM under VMware Fusion.  I have had to edit the config file for the ESXi VM and then I can assign 14 Megs of RAM to ESXi.  I have good luck with this configuration.  I have vCenter running on one ESXi and several VM's running on the other Mac Mini.  Both of them are talking to an iSCSI system being served up from a 3rd ESXi server running on Dell T300 server.

Ron

Reply
0 Kudos
macXuser
Contributor
Contributor

Anyone tried to install the patch ESXi510-201307001 into Mini 6,2 on patched version ESXi?

VMware KB: VMware ESXi 5.1, Patch Release ESXi510-201307001

Can I install the patch directly?

UPDATED:

Try update directly using esxcli

Boot = OK

OS X 10.7 10.8 Guest OS (Running) = Can Use

Reply
0 Kudos