CPU masking at vcenter

[nr1c0re]

Hello everyone!

I had a cluster with 2 machines with xeon E5440 and all was fine.

Now I need to upgrade my hosts to new servers (from dl380 g5 to dl360 g7).

New dl460 g7 came with xeon E5645 cpu.

So at first look I just need to vmotion all VMs to one host, turn off one old server, install on new server esxi and add it to vcenter.

All was good, new server joined cluster.

From that point my plan was to vmotion all VMs to this new server and... And this was the point of failture. I got CPU mismatch requirements:

Aha, vcenter did not like SSE4.2 at new server CPU.

I read through http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1993

and tryed to change mask. I know that EVC is preferred option and I will turn it on later, because old server says that "EVC is not supported" and I do not want to shutdown any VM.

So at "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\vpxd.cfg" I added this as per KB and above screenshot:

    <guestOSDescriptor>

<esx-4-x-x>

<all-versions>

<all-guests>

<cpuFeatureMask>

<default-vendor>

<level-1>

<ecx>---- --x- x--x ---- ---- ---- ---- --x-</ecx>

</level-1>

<level-80000001>

<edx>---- x--- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----</edx>

</level-80000001>

</default-vendor>

</cpuFeatureMask>

</all-guests>

</all-versions>

</esx-4-x-x>

     </guestOSDescriptor>

Restarted vmware vcenter service. BUT! When I try to vmotion VM I still see those error.

I do not know why I got those error because I look at error and CPU mask at vpxd.cfg and feel like those error should not happen.

Thanks in advance!

[vGuy]

have you tried adding the mask directly to the problem VM?

might be worth trying...

[nr1c0re]

This problem with any VM I have.

And if I configure per VM cpu masks - I need to restart VM and then move them.

While reading KB I saw that if I change CPU masks at vcenter then only thing I need to get it work is to restart vcenter service. May be I missed the point? Should I restart VMs too even if I change masks at vcenter?

[vGuy]

Actually, with the global bit mask you still need to restart the VMs:

"Changes to the global bit mask do not take effect for individual virtual machines until they have been powered off and powered on again."

[Sreejesh_D · Accepted solution]

Whats the hypervisor?  ESX or ESXi?

As per the KB, global masking is applicable only for ESX (2 or later) not for ESXi.

[nr1c0re]

ESXi... I think this is the answer.

So I got nothing to do else exept turning off VM's.

But at least I can make new cluster, turn on EVC in it and migrate VM's by turning off/on to it.

Thanks for help!