Monitor RAID from ESXi 5.0.0

[carbonman]

We're running VMWare ESXi 5.0.0 on a SuperMicro server, utilizing a LSI MegaRAID SAS/SATA2 2108 controller (AOC-SAS2LP-H8IR) without the BBU.

How do I monitor the health of the RAID?

I've tried the following:

• View it from VMWare vSphere Client, but it doesn't show degraded after I unplug the HD.
• Monitor it from the server itsself, but also doesn't see it as degraded.
• Monitor it via IPMI console.

According to the guys from SuperMicro I need to run MSM (MegaRAID Storage Manager) on a client PC and should then be able to monitor it from there, but after I installed the client on my PC, it doesn't find any LSI RAID controllers on the server. (Obviously I should install something on the Host too, but what?)

Could someone please direct me in the right direction?

[spravtek]

Hey,

Did you follow some of these guidelines? http://kb.lsi.com/KnowledgebaseArticle16430.aspx?Keywords=MSM+esxi+5.0

The video looks promising.

[msatya]

have you followed belwo link ,please share your feedbck

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please award points if you see fit.Thanks

[carbonman]

Yes - I've followed those links, but unfortunately I still cannot access the RAID config using the MSM from a client machine - I get the error "Servers could not be found because server may be down or server not installed in the host system".

I did see in the video, that they are reffering to a MegaRAID SAS 9285-8e controller (I have the LSISAS 2108 controller - http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USAS2LP-H8IR.cfm), but it seems as if the 9285 controller also uses the LSI 2108 chipset - hence I see no reason why it shouldn't work.

I have also now disabled the firewall on the ESXi host and made sure that CIM Server (and CIM Secure Server) is running.

The closest I could get to monitor the RAID was to see it through vSphere Client - under Configuration/Health Status. But I can't see how long it's going to take, etc.

Any other ideas?

[spravtek]

So, just to be clear, for me to get a picture really.

You have installed the MSM on a Windows machine trying to connect to the ESXi server?

Apparently sometimes it happens you cannot connect to the ESXi server and you need to install the CIM package locally (cfr this article: http://kb.lsi.com/KnowledgebaseArticle16586.aspx )

Now I'm sure you saw all this ... Just covering bases here ...

No support is available for the controller health information apparently ... Though I get you're not getting that far just yet.

This is the VMware KB for LSI monitoring, though I'm guessing you tried that as well: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=200416...

I'm actually awaiting a delivery of some Supermicro boards for a customer, they contain a LSI controller as well, I'm interested to see if I'll get some information out of them.

[carbonman]

Yes - MSM is running on a Windows Client trying to access ESXi 5.0.0 on a SuperMicro box with a LSI RAID controller. I've installed scsi-megaraid SAS and the vmw-esx-5.0.0-lsiprovider as in the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEBwt6Q_diU. I still get the following:

I've also disabled the firewall, etc, etc. but no success... :smileycry:

For the record - this is the sites that looked promising (but still no success):

http://tinkertry.com/lsi92658iesxi5/

http://www.lsi.com/support/products/Pages/MegaRAID%20SAS%209285-8e.aspx - to download the MegaRAID VMWare SMIS Provider VIB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=069zj9hVBnE - for the firewall config

The only thing I could think, is that my RAID Controller is not supported. But it would be great to see what the outcome is from your side.

[AUPhil]

This is interesting. I am having similar issues.

I can see all of my ESXi 4.x hosts using the method in this thread, but no ESXi 5 hosts

The chip I want to follow is an LSI SAS 2008 chip.

Thanks,

AUPhil

[AlexAT]

Yes. It is SLP server in ESXi that does not respond to multicast queries from MSM/RWC2 (but responds to unicast perfectly).

The clean solution is here (SLP protocol (the root cause of the problem) multicast to unicast proxy):

http://alex-at.ru/it/lsi-vmware-esxi-1 (use Google Translate if you don't understand Russian)

Tool download link: http://alex-at.ru/media/blogs/alex/Code/slp_helper.zip

Short instructions:

1. I assume you have ESXi, MSM/RWC, LSI driver under ESXi and LSI CIM/SMIS providers for ESXi all installed and ready to go.

2. Unzip tool mentioned above (it contains PHP 5.4 runtime, therefore so large, ~3Mb ZIP)

3. Edit slp_helper.php file with text editor, look for "$unicast_ips = array('192.168.1.1');". Place IP of your ESXi servers to manage here (in single quotes, comma-separated if many).

4. Run runme.cmd. Tool will start and must display no errors (only the startup information). After that it'll begin logging SLP requests to screen. It's enough to have one copy of tool in LAN, it will proxy all multicast SLP requests to ESXi servers specified.
5. Run MSM/RWC2. Discover hosts.

6. Enjoy.