Vmware 6.0 (build 2494585) CPU Licence question

[kristiaanb]

Hi Everyone,

I have a bit of an odd situation whereby we have two HP DL160 Gen 9 servers, one system has two physical 6 core CPU's the other has two physical 8 core CPU's. for some reason one instance of VMware is only showing one Phyiscal processor and the other system is showing two? rebooting the box confirms in the bios that the system see's both Processors, however the second processor was added AFTER the installation of VMWare.

What am I missing to make VMware see the additional processor? we are using the freeware licence on both servers (the other system has no issue seeing both processors.).

[a_p_]

Adding an additional CPU usually works seamlessly, so this shouldn't be an issues with the OS (ESXI).

What I'd suggest to do, is to boot the server from e.g. a Live Linux CD to see whether this detects one or two CPUs. In case it detects only one CPU, you may want to check whether a BIOS reset resolves the issue.

André

[MattiasN81]

Someone can correct me if im wrong :smileygrin:

All ESXi liceses is minimum 2 sockets, i never seen a license that allow only one socket, even the free license allows 2 sockets.

I have seen this before though, when you have a cluster and assingn licenses via vCenter server and have one CPU hosts in the mix, ive also seen this when using esxi licenses bundled with horizon (host desktop licenses)

[kristiaanb]

This is the main reason for my query, I've never seen ESXi do this either, the system is using the free key you get when you download ESXi6 and is the same key being used on an identical system with two physical processors (which it can see fine).

I am trying to arrange  a time to reboot the box at present so I can check to ensure the system see's both processors as expected. in the mean time however I've attached some screenshots for reference.

This is the confirmation I get when I copy paste the licence key into the enter licence box.

[MattiasN81]

Can you check and see if ESXi sees the other CPUs by running "esxcli hardware cpu list" from SSH or shell ?

[a_p_]

The free Hypervisor doesn't have a CPU/socket limit (except for supported maximums), and shows the number of detected sockets in the licensing screen.

I'm not aware of a two sockets minimum requirement.

André

[MattiasN81]

True, i spelled it out wrong, dont want to confuse people

I meant that even with the hypervisor license you can have 2 sockets, no license only allows one socket