CD-Rom not available as host device

[catseye]

Am I missing something obvious? I'm trying to install an OS from an ISO that is sitting on a server running ESX 3i. When I edit the settings for the vm, the Host Device drop down for configuring the CD-ROM says "No Devices available". I know the CD-ROM drive is functioning fine since that is where I installed 3i from. I went into the command line to see what I could see and I don't see anything under /dev that looks like a CD-ROM. This is on a Dell PowerEdge 2900. While technically this server is not on the 3i HCL, it is pretty close to a 2950, which is. From what I have been told, the only difference between the 2900 series and the 2950 series is form factor.

[Charu]

You could be hitting a known issue. Try setting the CD-ROM device to something like /vmfs/devices/genide/vmhba0:0:0 instead of /dev/hda.

[catseye]

Thanks Charu, but the only places I see where I can select the CD-ROM device are prepopulated drop-down lists. If I do it through Edit Settings and try to modify the existing CD-ROM device, it says "No Devices available" under the Host device list. If I remove the existing CD-DVD Drive and then attempt to add one, the Host device drop-down list contains no entries.

I tried editing via the Remote CLI, but all I can seem to do is list devices (esxcfg-vmhbadevs). I then tried via the Infratstructure Client's Configuration panel. Under Storage Adapters, vmhba32 is listed as the cdrom, so I chose "Manage Paths", but "Change" does not allow the user to modify the device path.

[admin]

Can you the following from VI Client -

Edit Settings... -> Add... -> SCSI Device -> Next

[Fatemi]

I have the same problem. I tried adding a SCSI drive as the last comment suggested but the client won't let me. It says: This device cannot be added to this VM because: There are no non-disk SCSI devices available on the host.

[bretti]

Does your Dell PowerEdge 2900 have a SCSI CD-ROM or IDE CD-ROM installed on it?

[Fatemi]

Hi,

We have the 2950 III and it has the 8X DVD-ROM (part# GG228) listed as IDE. The only thing availabe under Host Device is /vmfs/devices/genide/vmhba0:0:0 which unfortunatly doesn't work.

[phenrichs]

OK, so they stripped out the linux kernel to reduce the overhead but along with that came a hardware handicap. There is NO access to the host CD_ROM, SERIAL, or USB devices. Period. They know that everyone wants USB. They now know that CD-ROM is a huge concern as well. I have spoken with them and there is no plan in the immediate future for cd-rom but perhaps serial.

SORRY.

Regards,

Paul

[Fatemi]

Thanks. Well that certainly helps (knowing it just won't work and not to keep trying & wondering).

[ocremel]

The previous comment is incorrect or incorrectly phrased.

Host CD drives (of all stripes, IDE/SATA/SCSI/USB) are supported by ESXi for access by VMs. Granted the UI to attach a host CD drive to a VM is non-intuitive but it is possible. I am trying to locate relevant documentation to help you out.

If the comment referred to attaching other kinds of host USB devices to a VM then it is not supported by ESX in general, it is not an ESXi restriction. Solutions using USB over Ethernet (for USB dongles for instance) are supported and much preferred since they do not prevent vmotion.

As far as other host devices are concerned, parallel ports, serial ports and floppy drives are indeed not supported by ESXi for VM access in the currently shipping version.

[admin]

Can you check if "Connect at power on" is set for the CD/DVD drive.

Thanks.

[admin]

I just tried this on a Dell 2950 machine and IDE cdrom works fine. Please make sure that

you have both "Connected" and "Connect at power on" checked under "Device Status" for

CD/DVD Drive.

[catseye]

Any luck finding that documentation ocremel? I'm not sure if there is some small difference between the 2900 and the 2950 that would make the CD-ROM visible, but I am attaching a screen cap of the server config and the specific machine config.

[ocremel]

So far I have only go this:

which is not that helpful

[georgedo]

Hi ocremel,

did you manage to locate any documentation on how to attach host CD-ROM devices? We've got the same problem with SunFire 4150 (it's on 3.5 but not on 3i HCL): CD-ROM is picked up by ESX but when configuring vm Host Device drop down for configuring the CD-ROM says "No Devices available". Note that in SunFire CD-ROM shows up as USB device but recognised correctly as "cdrom" by ESX. There must be some remote CLI command to "shove" the device down ESX throat

Cheers,

George

[ocremel · Accepted solution]

The documentation (the one I linked to above) will be updated for the next release and a Knowledge Base article is being written in the meantime.

In your case a USB CDROM does not appear as a CDROM (a quirk that we'll try to hide from the user in the future), so you cannot select it by editing the CD/DVD drive settings. Instead it appears as a generic SCSI device so you need to 'add ...' a 'scsi device' while editing the VM settings. It should show up as something like /vmfs/devices/genscsi/vmhba...

[ocremel]

Also if you plugged in the USB device after the ESX system was booted, you may need to rescan before the device appears (Configuration, storage, refresh I believe).

[catseye]

Thanks ocremel. With that info, I am 90% of the way there. I was able to add the CDROM as a SCSI device (never occurred to me to do that because I thought 3i would find it automatically). It is detected as /vmfs/devices/genscsi/vmhba32:0:0. The O/S -- in this case Linux -- finds it as /dev/cdrom1 and it is a mountable device. The only remaining problem is that the VMware BIOS doesn't see the device, so one cannot boot from media in the drive.

[georgedo]

Brilliant, worked like a charm. Certainly not intuitive (not for a newbie like me, anyway) but I'm glad to report that guest Windows 2003 Server can now see DVD including the region

Thanks, ocremel.

[shar_234]

Hi all

Let me first tell u that I'm very new to this virtualisation technology and so ur help wud be quite useful for me.

Using the VmWare SDK APIs, I tried creating a new VM ( in a HP DL server) on ESXi host.When I tried powering on the VM it threw an error meaning the Disk had to be created with the 'thick' format.

I know that when creating a new virtual disk, the default format option is zeroed thick. Using vmkfstools -d 'format_type' we acheive the solution to this problem in the prev versions of ESX.

Now, in the APIs used for creating a Device/disk configuration or backing info configuration, I dont find that option for specifying the diskformat type. I used the createVM_Task for creating the new VM.And its arguments are initialised appropriately. Can someone help me find the property or the method where the formatdisk can be set as thick in the VMWare SDK APIs?