I made some custom changes to my /etc/vmware/esx.conf , but my system didn't startup properly afterwards. Displaying the usual "Press F2...", dark screen flashing, "Press F2...", dark screen flashing, ... It is also unreachable from network: Neither by vSphere nor by ping.
My hardware:
Intel DQ87PG Haswell Motherboard
Intel Core i5 4570
Old PCI SATA controller used for "root-device".
My changes:
From: /device/000:000:31.2/vmkname = "vmhba0"
To:
/device/000:000:31.2/owner = "passthru"
/device/000:000:31.2/device = "8c02"
/device/000:000:31.2/vendor = "8086"
I also tried to remove the AHCI driver:
~ # esxcli software vib remove -n sata-ahci
Removal Result
Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
Reboot Required: true
VIBs Installed:
VIBs Removed: VMware_bootbank_sata-ahci_3.0-18vmw.550.1.15.1623387
VIBs Skipped:
Tinkered with some other system files... No changes... It's not listed..
After the system crashed, I simply disabled the AHCI controller at the Intel VBIOS/EFI. This gave me the opportunity to boot the system properly, my changes were removed, as the controller is not available anymore.
It can be enabled afterwards to use it again.
I need to passthrough the controller, as using ZFS with raw-disk-mapping is not recommended. My drives are also greater than 2TB.
The controller works properly using Linux-KVM: Making use of modern vfio, I was able to passthrough the controller to a FreeBSD 10 machine, which booted directly off a drive on this controller, thanks to SeaBios. That is, it is technically possible!
I'll use Linux then. VMware really proofed its customer friendliness at this stage, by not fixing this issue.
Best regards
EDIT: Using the latest version of ESXI: 5.5.0 #1 SMP Release build-1623387