Host Does Not Support Passthrough Configuration

[FenrisUltra]

Ok here is my problem...

I am running ESXi 6.0 on a HP ProLiant DL380 G5 (which pretty much looks like this https://www.amazon.com/HP-ProLiant-DL380-G5-Quad-Core/dp/B00CLUIMGQ​ only thing is I have 2 Xeon 5160 processors at 3 GHz so they won't handle anything higher then ESXi 6.0 not 6.5)

Next I have a Startech PCI expansion bus plugged into the machine...(See link for details PCIe to 4 Slot PCI Expansion System | Slot Conversion | StarTech.com Canada​), I know this machine works nicely because it used in so many different PC's. Why I have this box in is because I need to expand my bus into some PCI slots so I can run some NI DAQ hardware that fits to a PCI slot.

Next step....In this expansion box I have the following cards...

• NI PCI-6031 (See link for more details NI PCI-6031E - National Instruments​)
• NI PCI-6704 (See link for more details PCI-6704 - National Instruments)
• NI PCI-6509 (See link for more details PCI-6509 - National Instruments)

So, since I have this ProLiant box, you can see that these 3 cards wont fit into the system because there PCI and the HP box doesn't have any PCI slots in them, they are only PCI express.

Now I have a virtual machine setup to take this hardware in. However, when I select this server in vSphere, then click the configuration tab, then select advanced settings, I get "host does not support passthrough configuration"

Could somebody please help me make this hardware show up, so I can pass these 3 cards to the virtual machine I would like to run them on.

Thank you!

[bluefirestorm]

The Xeon 5160 CPU does not support Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d); so passthrough is not possible at all.

https://ark.intel.com/products/27219/Intel-Xeon-Processor-5160-4M-Cache-3_00-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB

https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2009/06/25/understanding-vt-d-intel-virtualization-technology...

[mprazeres183]

Hi FenrisUltra​,

Did you install the VIBs for the PCI cards?

The issue is that the Image from HP or the original Image from ESXi does not have the HP Drivers integrated.
Therefore you have to download the VIBs and then upload them to the ESXi Hosts with WINSCP or with vUM or on the ESXi Host interface.

Whenever you have done it, reboot the ESXi Host, then you will see that they will be recognized.

Whenever you have uploaded the VIBs, if you do it with WINSCP you have to install them by using this command. (Put them in /tmp)

esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/*

* and the path to the VIB.

If you never worked with VIBs before, here is a good article for it:

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2011/09/whats-in-a-vib.html

Best regards,

Marco