VMware Cloud Community
Fsamarelli
Contributor
Contributor

ESXi 4.0 All Guests lockup and server requires hard reboot.

ESXi 4.0 All Guests lockup and server requires hard reboot. happens every few days

Reply
0 Kudos
10 Replies
marcelo_soares
Champion
Champion

Few questions:

- Are the hardware on the compatibility list? What hardware is it?

- Do it have shared storage or only internal?

- Do it have a management agent installed from the hardware vendor?

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Virtualization Tech Master

Globant Argentina

Consider awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

Marcelo Soares
Reply
0 Kudos
Fsamarelli
Contributor
Contributor

Hardware is Dell R300 Server 2.33Mhz Quad Process. Storage is internal using Raid one with the Perc 6i (LSI) raid card. Drives are dual 2 TB WD RE4's.(Raid1).

No management agent install.

Reply
0 Kudos
Fsamarelli
Contributor
Contributor

Ever few days the guests all lockup and require me to power down the

server and reboot. I can log-in with vSphere Client but if I try to

reboot or power down the clients they get to 95% and hang. Attachrd are

images of the performace chart. You can see at 12:43 the problem starts.

Ussage on the server is low. This happed before I insalled recent

server updates and as well as after updates.

Reply
0 Kudos
marcelo_soares
Champion
Champion

Export the diagnostic data from the ESX Server (file > export > system logs) and analyze the /var/log/messages log file. You may be running into some storage error.

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Virtualization Tech Master

Globant Argentina

Consider awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

Marcelo Soares
Reply
0 Kudos
Fsamarelli
Contributor
Contributor

Not sure what to look for. If I upload can you take a look please.

Reply
0 Kudos
marcelo_soares
Champion
Champion

Sure, can give it a try.

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Virtualization Tech Master

Globant Argentina

Consider awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

Marcelo Soares
Reply
0 Kudos
golddiggie
Champion
Champion

Is that the only storage inside the server? You could have either one, or two, flaky WD drives there. At least you opted to get the processor configuration listed on the HCL as being compatible with ESX/ESXi 4 (the 5400 series Xeon's are the only ones that are listed to work with ESX/ESXi 4). How much memory do you have in the host? How do you have the guests configured for using the resources of the host? You could be running into severe latency with the SATA drives there (a known issue with SATA drives). Try uploading the log files, as previously mentioned as well as provide details as to how you have the guest virtual hardware configured.

VMware VCP4

Consider awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

Reply
0 Kudos
Fsamarelli
Contributor
Contributor

The drives are WD RE4-GP enterprise drives. Storage is internal. ussage is very low. server has 24 gig of ram and only a few are bing use. I uploaded the config files. I have the same exact configured servers and have the same problem on them both.

Reply
0 Kudos
golddiggie
Champion
Champion

Have you contacted Dell support yet about the issue? Did you purchase the systems with ESXi preloaded by Dell? Did you install the generic ESXi 4 or the one with the Dell customized flavor?

I installed ESXi onto a trio of Dell R710 servers using the PERC 6i controller, onto two SAS drives (76GB I believe, either 10k or 15k rpm, forget which exactly), with all VM's residing on iSCSI storage and had no performance issues. These were using the 5520 Xeon processors (two of them).

Perhaps there's an issue with the processors, motherboards, or some other component inside the servers. Download the full diagnostic tools from the support site, install them to either disc or a thumb drive and run extensive tests on both servers at least overnight. I would also double check to make sure the bios of the servers, PERC 6i controller, etc are at the latest version. You might want to check with Dell support to make sure that won't cause other issues with ESXi first.

VMware VCP4

Consider awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

Reply
0 Kudos
Fsamarelli
Contributor
Contributor

I have not contacted dell since it points toward a software problem since it happens on more then one server. I have one server with the latest BIOS for the Raid controler and one with an older version with same results. The VM ware load I am using is the one I downloaded from DELL support/ Download site specific for this box.

Fred

Reply
0 Kudos