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SquidServer
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Install on FC LUN

Hello!

How to I can install ESXi6 on FC LUN? All OS start install but ESXi 6 don't see boot disk.

Thanks!

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Sonic33
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Hi,

Below are the steps I do install ESXi on FC LUNs, assuming you have configured your FC SAN correctly (zoning, redundancy, etc).

1. Create LUN and on the FC SAN that you want to use as Boot partition (see below info on the size of the Boot LUN). I usually make it LUN 0 so its asy to identify that it is the boot LUN.

Installing ESXi 6.0 or upgrading to ESXi 6.0 requires a boot device that is a minimum of 1GB in size. When booting from a local disk, SAN or iSCSI LUN, a 5.2GB disk is required to allow for the creation of the VMFS volume and a 4GB scratch partition on the boot device . If a smaller disk or LUN is used, the installer attempts to allocate a scratch region on a separate local disk. If a local disk cannot be found the scratch partition, /scratch, is located on the ESXi host ramdisk, linked to /tmp/scratch. You can reconfigure /scratch to use a separate disk or LUN. For best performance and memory optimization, do not leave /scratch on the ESXi host ramdisk.

To reconfigure /scratch, see Set the Scratch Partition from the vSphere Web Client.

Due to the I/O sensitivity of USB and SD devices the installer does not create a scratch partition on these devices. When installing or upgrading on USB or SD devices, the installer attempts to allocate a scratch region on an available local disk or datastore. If no local disk or datastore is found, /scratch is placed on the ramdisk. After the installation or upgrade, you should reconfigure /scratch to use a persistent datastore. Although a 1GB USB or SD device suffices for a minimal installation, you should use a 4GB or larger device. The extra space will be used for an expanded coredump partition on the USB/SD device. Use a high quality USB flash drive of 16GB or larger so that the extra flash cells can prolong the life of the boot media, but high quality drives of 4GB or larger are sufficient to hold the extended coredump partition. See Knowledge Base article http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2004784.

In Auto Deploy installations, the installer attempts to allocate a scratch region on an available local disk or datastore. If no local disk or datastore is found, /scratch is placed on ramdisk. You should reconfigure /scratch to use a persistent datastore following the installation.

For environments that boot from a SAN or use Auto Deploy, you need not allocate a separate LUN for each ESXi host. You can co-locate the scratch regions for many ESXi hosts onto a single LUN. The number of hosts assigned to any single LUN should be weighed against the LUN size and the I/O behavior of the virtual machines.

2. On the server, go to the HBA configuration and make sure the HBA detects the Boot LUN (LUN 0) which you created in step 1. You can try the steps I provided if you're using Brocade HBA.

  • Boot server and hit Ctrl-B or Alt-B to enter Brocade BIOS.
  • (ii)    Adapter Settings
    1. 1.      Enable Brocade HBA BIOS on all ports used.  Disable the Brocade HBA BIOS on all ports not used.
    2. 2.      Port Speed=Auto
    3. 3.      Boot Options: Choose “Flash Values” instead of “Fabric Discovered” or “Boot First LUN” if shown.
  • (iii)  Boot Devices

  Scan for boot devices on both HBA’s to force logon to fabric.


3. Configure the server's boot option to boot from the HBA first. Once this is done you can run the ESXi installer, make sure to choose the FC LUN (Boot LUN) on the list of location you can install the hypervisor.


That's it. Good luck installing Smiley Happy  

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