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Aladen
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

SLES9 VM breaks after applying updates: waiting for device to appear

I have a working SLES9 SP3 VM. on esx 3.0.2. VMtools working fine on it. I patched it a few months ago and it was fine.

I just tried to apply the latest set of patches from Suse. This includes all the new SP4 patches, and a kernel update to boot.

After running the online update, the vm fails to reboot. I get a message "Waiting for device to appear /dev/sda2". Then a list of the /dev directory, then "No root device found" and exit to shell.

Anyone know what is in the latest sles9 patches that breaks VM?

Thanks

-Andrew

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Aladen
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Update. Looks like the problem is Sles9 SP4. Specifically kernel version 308. We have been using the LSI devices for our virtual drives. Apparently this is now broken. I try to install a VM using the Sles9 SP4 isos. If I use the LSI drivers, the install complains it cant find the disk. If I use the buslogic ones, then it works fine.

So it looks like something in the latest kernel patch for sles9 breaks LSI. Which sucks since all of my linux VMs are built on LSI. ( I have a support call with vmware open on this.)

Anyone successful in running sles9 sp4 with LSI? If not, anyone know a safe way to change the device on a vm from lsi to buslogic without having to rebuild the vm?

Thanks

-Andrew

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talltrees
Contributor
Contributor

Hey, Aladen,

I just joined this community so I could find out what was going on, because I ran into exactly the same problem you did. My guest ran fine on 287.3, then when it changed to .308, it errs the way you describe.

So you're saying to use the buslogic drivers? Are these included from Novell?

Thanks for any assistance you can provide!

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

Maybe this helps:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=51306&slic...

the document below tells me that SP4 is not yet supported under ESX.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=http--pubs...

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
Aladen
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Turns out there is a patch for esx 3.0.2 needed to handle this kernel version.

ESX Server 3.0.2, Patch ESX-1002431; Updates to VMware-esx-vmx and VMware-esx-vmkernel; Fix For Detecting LSI Logic Controller, Support for PCI-X NICs on IBM System x3655

Summary

This patch fixes the following issues:

Fixes an issue where guest operating systems with Linux kernel version 2.6.18 or greater and using LSI Logic driver version 3.04.01 or greater do not detect the LSI Logic controller.

Symptoms

The following symptoms might be seen in systems without this patch:

Installation of guest operating systems with Linux kernel version 2.6.18 or greater using LSI Logic driver version 3.04.01 or greater might fail with the following message:

An error has occurred - no valid devices were found on which to create a file systems.Please check your hardware for the cause of this problem

Installing the above patch on my esx server fixed the problem.

For the record, using the buslogic driver also worked. (when building the virtual machine, chose custom, and under i/o adapters, select BusLogic) But other problems have been reported with the buslogic, so that is not recommended.

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Aladen
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks for the link. Actually, according to the 2nd one, SP4 is supported on esx3.0.2

VMware ESX Server 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.5

Service Pack 1, 2 supported on ESX Server 3.5

Service Pack 3 supported on ESX Server 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.5

Service Pack 4 supported on ESX Server 3.0.1, 3.0.2

Virtual SMP supported

As for the other link, I have not seen that issue, so I am hesitent to apply a non-sles patch to my systems. But thanks for the info.

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Aladen
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

ESX patch 1002431 needed.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Glad to hear you got it resolved. Thanks for the points and for letting us know how you solved it.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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talltrees
Contributor
Contributor

After I re-installed my image with the new patch, the problem has been resolved.

Thanks for your help.

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st0ma
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

The problem in my case is a bit different I believe. The operating system is SLES9 SP5 x64. After I have installed 3 new kernel updates from yast the version is 2.6.5-7.315-smp and upon reboot the system shows the following:

Is it safe to patch ESXi the same way it is described here?

The version is 3.5.0 build-110271 Aug 12 2008

Any advice would be highly appreciated!

Thank you!

St0ma

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