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HonyChiang
Contributor
Contributor

How to access IO and memory map under ESXi?

Hello Experts,

In order to support our customer to do BIOS upgrade on the system, we have developed some software tools to work under Windows, Linux and VMware ESX 4.0 successfully, but still have the trouble under ESXi 4.0/5.0. Could you guide me how to access IO and memory map normally under ESXi for this application?

Thanks for your assistance.

Hony

6 Replies
virtualdutch
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Logging on the ESXi console where the virtual machine runs and use esxtop to troubleshoot the performance issues is in my opinion the best way.

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HonyChiang
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Sir,

Thanks for your comment. My goal is to access hardware resource by softare, but does not relate to system performance. As we know, /dev/mem device node is available under Linux and ESX, so that memory map can be implemented by software. However, /dev/mem does not exist in ESXi. If so, how can I develop software to access memory map under ESXi?

PS: The attachment is one list about device nodes in ESXi 5.0.

Best regards,

Hony

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mcowger
Immortal
Immortal

The console available in ESXi is extremely stripped down, and will not have the functionality you desire.  Further, there will be no further development of the ESX classic line - all future versions of vSphere will rely on ESXi only.

The best recommendation is:

A) Contact VMware's partner services and get the documentation for doing this sort of thing (its NDA)

B) Write a utility that does this on reboot (with an ISO or somesuch).

--Matt VCDX #52 blog.cowger.us
munsingh
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Hony,

How did you get around this issue. I am new to ESXi app development and our Linux app opens /dev/mem to read certatin memory locations, and we need to do same while porting our app on to ESXi. Hence asking.

Regards,

Manish

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

ESXi is not Linux.

You might be better to explore the various APIs and SDKs available here: Home - VMware {code}


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dency_hello
Contributor
Contributor

Do you have found the way to access esxi's physical memory like linux (/dev/mem)?

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