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nhartman83
Contributor
Contributor

MSCS Failed Verification - Cant find HBAs

When trying to validate my MSCS 2008 SQL cluster I am getting the following error:

An error occurred while executing the test. There was an error getting information about the Fibre Channel controllers installed on the nodes. There was an error retrieving information about the Fibre Channel host bus adapters from node 'server1.domain'. Invalid class

I was wondering if anyone else had setup a MSCS 2008 SQL cluster and how they got around this error or maybe could shed some light on what I am missing?

Thanks in advance!

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21 Replies
Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Welcome to the VMware Community forums. Your post has been moved to the Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum.




Dave

VMware Communities User Moderator

New book in town - vSphere Quick Start Guide -http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/08/12/new-book-in-town-vsphere-quick-start-guide/.

Do you have a system or PCI card working with VMDirectPath? Submit your specs to the Unofficial VMDirectPath HCL - http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=21.

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DrRandy
Contributor
Contributor

I have the same problem. Can the error be ignored? Is this configuration supported?

Thanks, Randy

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nhartman83
Contributor
Contributor

I was able to install everything and get me MSCS 2008 SQL 2008 cluster setup. As you can setup the cluster without passing the verification, however the default SQL setup (click setup.exe) will fail if the cluster validation does not pass. But there is a workaround:

I am not sure if this is supported or not, however I am leaning towards not supported.

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degustator
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I also confurm that the problem appears when trying to validate Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster made of VMs on vSphere 4.0 including Update 1. The type of virtual HBA (LSI Logic SAS vs. VMware Paravirtual) and SCSI Bus Sharing (Virtual vs. Physical) is totally irrelevant to reproduction of this problem.

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kghammond2009
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Has anyone found a resolution to this?

It seems like if you could stuff in whatever Microsoft uses to identify if a fibre HBA exists, this would not be a problem.

Something in VMware Tools has to be causing the problem. Either that or the virtual hardware in ESX is missing some hardware to identify a fibre channel HBA...

Kevin

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geddam
Expert
Expert

I believe this is not correct.

I setup 2008 clustering with SQL 2008, for me it worked great. I didn;t came across any validation failures.

Can you provide more information on your issue....

1. Are you using an FC SAN or ISCSI SAN?

2. What is the hardware version you are using for VM?

3. Are you setting this up across hosts or in a single host?

Thanks,,

Ramesh. Geddam,

VCP 3&4, MCTS(Hyper-V).

Please award points, if helpful

Thanks,, Ramesh. Geddam,
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kghammond2009
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

We are using vSphere 4.0 Update 1.

Our VM is built using the pvscsi and vmxnet3 controllers.

The underlying SAN is iSCSI where the VMDK resides, although this should not matter.

The Microsoft iSCSI initiator is connecting to LeftHand iSCSI SAN's.

We are using hardware version 7 on Windows 2008 x64.

We are also setting up to go across hosts, but as I stated already, we are not using RDM's because we are using the Microsoft iSCSI initator for all shared storage.

The exact error message in the validation is:

Gathering Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter information for SQL2008CL1.daneco.us

An error occurred while executing the test. There was an error getting information about the Fibre Channel controllers installed on the nodes. There was an error retrieving information about the Fibre Channel host bus adapters from node 'SQL2008CL1.daneco.us'. Invalid object

From observation with other sites, I believe the expected response should be:

Gathering Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter information for SQL2008CL1.daneco.us

None Found

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geddam
Expert
Expert

Are you aware ISCS storage for MSCS in vSphere4 is not a supported environment....

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_u1_mscs.pdf (page: 13)...

But still you can give it a go.....I dont think you need to select a pvscsi controller for MSCS on ISCSI....I went with default LSI logic that worked for me..

Thanks,,

Ramesh. Geddam,

VCP 3&4, MCTS(Hyper-V).

Please award points, if helpful

Thanks,, Ramesh. Geddam,
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kghammond2009
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thank you for the follow-up. I don't think you fully follow though, we are using the MS iSCSI initiator to get around placing any shared storage on iSCSI RDM's.

If we want to get 100% supported, we would move the vmdk's from the iSCSI SAN to local disks on each ESX hosts. That would be 100% supported by VMware and Microsoft.

DRS and HA would not work but it would be supported with iSCSI. I don't see the point to this over physical boxes but that is a different topic.

Microsoft fully supports clusters using the MS iSCSI initiator and VMware supports the iSCSI initiator. So the only caveat is that VMware does not support the OS vmdk of a clustered host on a iSCSI VMFS. They do support the OS vmdk on a FC VMFS, but that is also a different story.

So back to the topic at hand, the VMware document is meaningless in this case. VMware will not support this configuration, Microsoft "should" assuming it passes the Cluster Validation Tool.

The pvSCSI versus LSI is irrelevant because that controller is being used for the OS only.

Now, the one potential issue is if something with the pvSCSI controller is doing something funky to the hardware that makes the Cluster Validation Tool think there is a fibre channel controller installed... Is the pvSCSI controller emulating fibre channel instead of SAS or some other hardware device, mabybe??? I have a case open with VMware at the moment to research that, not sure what they are going to tell me.

They already gave me the speach about iSCSI not being supported by VMware and I stated that I don't really care whether VMware supports this or not, I just need to know what is happening with the hardware that is causing the tool to think there is a fibre channel controller installed...

So we will see where this goes.

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kghammond2009
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Interesting...

I switched from the pvSCSI to LSI SAS controller and I still got an error, but the error now is:

An error occurred while executing the test. There was an error getting information about the Fibre Channel controllers installed on the nodes. There was an error retrieving information about the Fibre Channel host bus adapters from node 'SQL2008CL1.daneco.us'. Invalid class

Notice the error message change from invalid object to invalid class

I am going to try again with the LSI SCSI adapter.

LSI SCSI returns the Invalid class as well.

I did not use a fresh VM, but I just change the adapter... I wonder if something is hanging around from the pvSCSI or maybe it is a different issue...

Tried removing VMware Tools, back to the Invalid object error message...

After all that, looking at the plug and play devices from the Cluster Validation Tool, I see both pvscsi and LSI SAS devices listed... I tried removing them via hidden devices and via removing vmware tools but they are still hanging around...

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kghammond2009
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Partial confirmation.

I just deployed a new Windows 2008 x64 VM.

- LSI SCSI

- Intel NIC

- no VMware Tools

- single node cluster

This configuration passed the MSCS cluster validation tool and it passed the fibre channel tests. So it appears it is something with VMware tools, pvscsi and/or LSI SAS that breaks it.

More testing...

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geddam
Expert
Expert

Glad to know that it work for you now....Kudos! As mentioned earlier, it has to do with your SCSI controller. For me it worked with LSI Logic, with tools installed. I dont think tools is playing any role in this...

Thanks,,

Ramesh. Geddam,

VCP 3&4, MCTS(Hyper-V), SNIA SCP.

Please award points, if helpful

Thanks,, Ramesh. Geddam,
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kghammond2009
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

ok - confirmed, on my clean 2008 install, I added the LSI - SAS and VMware Tools. The cluster validation still suceeded. I then added the pvscsi controller and the cluster validation fails.

It appears there is an incompatability with Windows 2008 cluster validation tool and the pvSCSI driver being installed.

Thank You,

Kevin

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geddam
Expert
Expert

LSI Logic SAS controller is introduced to handle SCSI-3 Persisten reservation in Windows 2008. It will not make any difference if you use LSI logic standard controller or LSI Logic SAS controller for Windows 2008 if it is ISCSI storage. As SCSI-3 PR apply in FC SAN...

Thanks,,

Ramesh. Geddam,

VCP 3&4, MCTS(Hyper-V), SNIA SCP.

Please award points, if helpful

Thanks,, Ramesh. Geddam,
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Scissor
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

ok - confirmed, on my clean 2008 install, I added the LSI - SAS and VMware Tools. The cluster validation still suceeded. I then added the pvscsi controller and the cluster validation fails.

It appears there is an incompatability with Windows 2008 cluster validation tool and the pvSCSI driver being installed.

Thank You,

Kevin

Kevin -- I ran into this exact problem today and this is the only relevant thread I could find. Thank you for taking the time to figure out the cause of it.

Now I just need to go and rebuild my VM Cluster Node template without ever attaching a pvSCSI adapter to it.

Thanks!

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abresky20111014
Contributor
Contributor

Hey together!

I ran into the same problem.

The check showed one error for the Fibre Channel adapters (which, of course an VM does not have) and secondly one error for the SAS controller (although properly installed).


Investigations on the internet led me to the idea that a "messed up" WMI repository might be the cause for this.

So after running

"winmgmt /resetrepository"

the check went through without any further errors.

Advice: With "winmgmt /backup" you can save a copy of the WMI repository prior
performing the reset
and with "winmgmt /restore <Filename> <Flag>" you can restore
a specific backup file
.

Additional help for winmgmt can be obtained by typing "winmgmt /?"

Kind reagrds

Alex

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AlbertWT
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

OK, does this means that using pvSCSI as the SCSI controller is not supported for MSCS ?

http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/general-virtualization-articles/vmwares-paravi...

/* Please feel free to provide any comments or input you may have. */
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stevespike
Contributor
Contributor

I was having the same issue and this worked perfectly for me.

Although for the "winmgmt /resetrepository" to work I first had to stop the services

Application Experience

and

Certificate Propagation

I then restarted both VMs and the tests all passed!!!

Thanks all

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abresky20111014
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

yes...pvSCSI is currently not supported for using as a SCSI controller within a MSCS cluster.

All information concerning MSCS under VMware vSphere 4.1 can be found in the "Setup for Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service"

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_mscs.pdf

This guide contains information about the SCSI controllers that should be used dependent on the OS.

IMPORTANT: Please also note the "vSphere MSCS Setup Limitations" on page 11 of the above mentionned guide.Especially the limitation concerning RoundRobin is good to know. With MSCS you can not use RR. You have to use a "Fixed Path" policy. If RR ist set you will receive a very high disk latency.

Best regards

Alex

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