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justin2net
Contributor
Contributor

LSI 9260 SAS storage controller

I am evaluating the vSphere suite with a whitebox system that is otherwise compliant with the HCL.

I have a LSI 9260-8i controller that is not recognized by ESX. It is not listed on the storage page in vSphere client.

Lspci on the service console reveals that it is a "LSI Logic / Symbios Logic Unknown Device rev 03" (PCIID I have to retrieve again).

I tried editing the /etc/vmware/megaraid.xml by changing the PCIID of an entry (LSI 1064) to the PCIID of my controller, then running esxcfg-pciid and rebooting. It did not show up on vSphere client after reboot.

Lspci again showed that it was now recognized as LSI 1064. So I know that change was effective.

LSI does provide an ESX driver,

though repeated attempts to install it result in an "obsoleted package". I mounted the ISO, ran esxupdate --bundle offline-bundle.zip update and it would result in "did not install, obsoleted".

Is there a way to force install these drivers? Do I have to do them at ESX installation?

Thank you.

Eventually I want to be able to use PCI pass through with a VT-D mobo and attach this controller to a Solaris VM to run a ZFS storage, thus bypassing the VMFS "layer".

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justin2net
Contributor
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bump

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Welcome to the VMware Community forums. If you plan to use the controller with VMDirectPath, then you don't have to worry about the driver at the ESX level. If you want it to work with ESX I'd take a look at the vmkernel log file to see what happens when the driver loads.

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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Mindflux
Contributor
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Hi, have you come across a fix for this yet? I'm trying to load ESXi 4.0 but it wont see my 9260 card so I have no drives to load it on.

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justin2net
Contributor
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It does not work under ESXi/ESX. The drivers will not load.

I also could not get the card to work properly when passed through to VMs (Opensolaris, W2003, both with drivers installed). Setting the power transition method to d3d0 resulted in no success.

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Mindflux
Contributor
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When I run an esxupdate on the offline-package I get a "Vib signature is missing". Not an obsolete package message.

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Mindflux
Contributor
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Ok, if I move my megaraid_sas.o from the LSI VMWare package to the box, and modify the simple.map and pci.ids and run vmkload_mod megaraid_sas.o, I can get my controller. This is good news.

The problem is, I cannot permanently modify the simple.map and pci.ids. Every reboot it reverts back. I've tried making an oem.tgz (google it) but I keep getting a pink screen of death on bootup.

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Mindflux
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Ok! WHEW I Got it.

Copy the megaraid_sas.o from the ESXi package to /tmp on the server (Use WinSCP after you enable SSH)

1) cd /tmp/

2) mkdir -p oem/etc/vmware

3) mkdir -p oem/usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod

4) cp /tmp/megaraid_sas.o /tmp/oem/usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod

5) cd oem/etc/vmware

6) cp /etc/vmware/simple.map simple.map

7) vi simple.map

(This controller is 1000:0079)

😎 close vi - press ESC and enter :wq

9) cp /etc/vmware/pci.ids pci.ids

10) vi pci.ids

    • add the necessary description for your devices (this will be displayed in the console and VI Client)

11) close vi - press ESC and enter :wq

12) cd /tmp/oem

13) chown -R 201:201 ./etc

14) chown -R 201:201 ./usr

15) chmod -R 755 ./etc

16) chmod -R 755 ./usr

15) chmod 644 ./etc/vmware/simple.map

16) chmod 644 ./etc/vmware/pci.ids

17) tar -cvzf oem.tgz etc usr

18) cp oem.tgz /bootbank/oem.tgz

19) cd /bootbank/

20) chmod 755 oem.tgz

21) reboot the host

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Magigimmix
Contributor
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@Mindflux

I am faced with the exact same problem. My disks are connected to a 9260-8i card and when I boot from CD to install, ESXi does not recognize the card so I have no where to install to.

You seem to have solved the problem by modifying oem.tgz as you describe in your post. What I don't understand is how you copy "megaraid_sas.o from the ESXi package to /tmp on the server" when you have not installed the server as yet. Did you install ESXi to some other disk and then went on from there? If Yes, I can see how you got ESXi to recognize the MegaRAID card, but were you able to get ESXi installed on an array attached to the card?

Could you attach your oem.tgz to this thread? I can then use http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4 without having to perform the copy part that I am unable to understand. That should give me a new ISO with the driver included.

Otherwise I can see a two step approach where I first install to a second disk, modify oem.tgz there and then copy that off to a Linux box to run the bash script to create a custom install. I should then be able to boot from that custom disk with the driver included.

TIA.

Magi.

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Mindflux
Contributor
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Sorry! I forgot to mention that.

I loaded ESXi up on a 2GB USB Thumb drive. It's small enough to fit on a 1GB but this is what I had on hand. So my ESXi instance boots (and runs) off USB flash and my vmfs filesystem now resides on my raid arrays after I got the controller working. Since the install is so small I saw no sense (and had no way) to load it on a part of my large storage arrays.

I thought about attatching the oem.tgz to this thread but didn't want to upset anyone in the community with an unsupported method. I can attatch the oem.tgz tomorrow.

FWIW, I didn't do any of the fancy "how to install ESXI on a USB drive" routines to get ESXi 4 on a thumb drive, I simply booted the ESXi cd I made and when it came time to install it listed my 2GB USB drive to load it on and away it went.

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justin2net
Contributor
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Good to hear it works now. I would appreciate the oem.tgz file. I can test it with my setup.

Thanks!

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Mindflux
Contributor
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Here you go.

I renamed megaraid_sas.o to megaraidsas.o to avoid overwriting the older file just in case it caused problems.

Good luck

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Magigimmix
Contributor
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Thanks! I will try that out later today and let you know how it goes.

Magi.

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Mindflux
Contributor
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Looking forward to hearing your results.

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brennanma
Contributor
Contributor

I am curious if you succeeded with this. I am in the same situation right now where I can not install onto the local RAID array. I would like to be able to as I fear someone might pull out a USB drive if I left one in the back of the system.

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Mindflux
Contributor
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I guess he just took it and ran. nice.

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Magigimmix
Contributor
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I am not sure if you were asking Mindflux or me, but I have not tried this out as yet. The machine sits waiting for me to find time.

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Magigimmix
Contributor
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I tried your copy of oem.tgz and it hangs when booting from CD at the point when it loads the megaraidsas driver. I will try to roll my own oem.tgz in case there are version incompatibilities that is causing the driver hang.

Thank You,

Magi.

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Mindflux
Contributor
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Dang, that stinks. Sorry it didn't work.

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

One thing that makes installation and modification easier is to install ESXi to a USB stick. If you are using 3.5 try http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/07/29/esxi-35-update-2-on-a-usb-memory-key/ or version 4 can install directly to USB. Once you are up and going with the USB stick it is easy to modify the OEM.tgz over and over again until you get it right.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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