esxi 5.0 pointers


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Again just had to do it :-)

 

All disks are now on the MV8 controllers and the action was as easy as pie as was expected.

 

I have one remaining issue: My 2,5" drives are in a Supermicro 4in1 cabinet, that cabinet does not have regular sata connections but one cable that spins out in 4 individual ones, those cables are meant to be put in a sata slot and cannot connect to the cables of the MV8. I only need -one- of the 2,5" drives to connect to the MV8's, the rest can be seated on the motherboard as they will be part of the esxi part of the machine.

 

Best solution I have been able to find (but for removing the 2,5" and having it dangle loose in the case) is using a "sata gender changer", I have ordered one:

 

http://www.allekabels.nl/na/0/1082567/adapter-genderchanger-sata-sata.html

 

This should make it possible to put the cachedrive on the MV8 also, it should arrive tomorrow.

 

Its not really a great solution but the best option I have been able to find.

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so, i did more testing with the sata card i recommended.

 

idk if you already had set the pass through for MV8, but the monoprice sata cards need similar hack.

meaning.. you need this line for the sata card;

 

pciPassthru#.msiEnabled = "FALSE"

 

where # is the pciPassthru number for the sata card.

 

 

i was able to pass thru the card without above line, but whenever i try to preclear my test drive, it would give PSOD (Purple Screen of Death).

but after adding that line, i was able to preclear my drives without any problem.

 

I am not an esxi expert.. so i have no idea what that line does.. lol

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Again just had to do it :-)

 

All disks are now on the MV8 controllers and the action was as easy as pie as was expected.

 

I have one remaining issue: My 2,5" drives are in a Supermicro 4in1 cabinet, that cabinet does not have regular sata connections but one cable that spins out in 4 individual ones, those cables are meant to be put in a sata slot and cannot connect to the cables of the MV8. I only need -one- of the 2,5" drives to connect to the MV8's, the rest can be seated on the motherboard as they will be part of the esxi part of the machine.

 

Best solution I have been able to find (but for removing the 2,5" and having it dangle loose in the case) is using a "sata gender changer", I have ordered one:

 

http://www.allekabels.nl/na/0/1082567/adapter-genderchanger-sata-sata.html

 

This should make it possible to put the cachedrive on the MV8 also, it should arrive tomorrow.

 

Its not really a great solution but the best option I have been able to find.

 

I just received the gender changer and have set it up between cache drive and MV8. All seems well. This means my system now has all its drives on MV8 controllers so I can build an unraid VM based on VT-D while still retaining 6 SATA connections from my mainboard for use of esxi itself.

 

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Just installed unraid as a VM machine. The bootup sequence seems a bit slower then I am used to, I might need to experiment with some cpu settings.

 

Unraid is running but I do not seem to be able to connect to it..

 

I see the IP number of the unraid box visible on my network (I had it set with fixed IP).

 

I see all my disks under /mnt

 

Since I cannot get to the system, telnet also does not work, I cannot get the syslog and attach it.

 

It looks like the server itself is running fine but I just cannot reach it...

 

Can this be some part of the virtualisation I forget ?  Will my fixed IP setup still work for example ?

 

I would appreciate some pointers !

 

Complete install done according to the atlas thread.

 

If I ping from console (using the esxi console, telnet does not work) it tells me "network is unreachable". And just know it stops with a pink screen of death:

 

Spin count exceeded (domain0) - possible deadlock with PCPU 2

 

Thought of something.. I followed the atlas instructions to the letter.. I however have two mv8 cards... Should I have made the vmx settings twice somehow ?

pink.jpg.5b0f334a9d1a1ee1cc6955c5732dee01.jpg

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Should I have made the vmx settings twice somehow ?

Yes once for each MV8 passed through.  So if you have 2 and one of the is on pciPassthru0 and the other is on pciPassthru1 just add  pciPassthru1.msiEnabled = 'FALSE' to the other one.

 

Thanks, I made the passthru add for the second card just now and rebooted. The atlas thread discribes a change in the "passthru.map" file also, does this also need to be duplicated somehow ?  (it does not look like it ?).

 

Based om what I have read I expect the psod to stay away but I am curious if I also will get network connectvity now..

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Should I have made the vmx settings twice somehow ?

Yes once for each MV8 passed through.  So if you have 2 and one of the is on pciPassthru0 and the other is on pciPassthru1 just add  pciPassthru1.msiEnabled = 'FALSE' to the other one.

 

Thanks, I made the passthru add for the second card just now and rebooted. The atlas thread discribes a change in the "passthru.map" file also, does this also need to be duplicated somehow ?  (it does not look like it ?).

 

Based om what I have read I expect the psod to stay away but I am curious if I also will get network connectvity now..

 

Jup... the VM booted up and sofar has not PSOD'd on me. The VM however does not get network connectivity. It actually telsl me "Network is unreachable" when I try to ping its own ip and/or the default gateway. If I ping localhost that works (127.0.0.1).

 

I am thinking that the network card the VM emulates is not recognied by Unraid, now I am not positive how this actually works BUT I am guessing that VMware emulates the Nic that is actually on the board ?

 

The X9SCM-F has 3 NIC's:

 

1 for IPMI

2 LAN Nic's.

 

Even when running bare metal only one of the LAN NIC's is recognised by Unraid, no problem sofar since I have allways just used the other NIC.

 

When running esxi however it is completely oposite, only when I use the first NIC it is recognised, when I use the second NIC esxi does not recognise it.

 

So now I am running esxi with the "esxi nic", I am now "guestimating" that VMWare emulates this nic towards Unraid, and since it is a nic unraid does not recognise it will not work.

 

Does that sound logical ?

 

If so I think I have 2 routes open:

 

1) Make unraid recognise the other nic

2) Make esxi recognise the other nic

 

 

I have found a thread describing how to get esxi to recognise the second NIC, I just did what is advised and am now rebooting, for the benefit of others herewith the thread:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=17936.msg161406#msg161406

 

I can confirm that it works, the NIC is now recognised by esxi.

 

Unfortunately there is no network connectivity from to the outside world from within the unraid VM .. :-(

 

I would appreciate some pointers to get this to work..

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No network connectivity from within the unraid VM to the outside world.

 

Ifconfig showes:

 

Link encap:Local Loopback

inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask 255.0.0.0

UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric: 1

 

So looks like the VM network adaptor is not recognised by unraid.

 

Did some googling and found out that it is possible to change the adaptor that esxi creates for the VM by changing one line in the VMX file. Knowledgebase article is here:

 

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003020

 

A lot of text but basically you just need to make sure there is an entry in the file as follows:

 

ethernetN.virtualDev = "e1000"

 

(the N should be a number, look at the other ethernet lines in the to see what it should be)

 

If you do not allready have an ethernetN.virtualDev line then just add it, otherwise change it.

 

After this setting it appears to work ! Now for some performance testing !

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What you've done there is changed the adapter type to a e1000 from whatever you previously had it set to - same as editing the virtual NIC in the vSphere client and changing its type.  Ideally you should try and get vmxnet3 working, as that means that within your internal network (default vSwitch), you are using the potential performance of a 10Gbps network adapter.  Obviously limitations of your hardware come into play, but it's worth it if you are using SSD's especially, as internal speeds can exceed the usual 1Gbps of an e1000 virtual NIC or most regular physical NIC's.

 

Perhaps try installing the vmware tools plugin... I'm not sure if it's strictly required, as I've always had it installed :)  The linked post below indicates the vmxnet3 driver should be in unRAID by default.

 

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=11449.0

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What you've done there is changed the adapter type to a e1000 from whatever you previously had it set to - same as editing the virtual NIC in the vSphere client and changing its type.  Ideally you should try and get vmxnet3 working, as that means that within your internal network (default vSwitch), you are using the potential performance of a 10Gbps network adapter.  Obviously limitations of your hardware come into play, but it's worth it if you are using SSD's especially, as internal speeds can exceed the usual 1Gbps of an e1000 virtual NIC or most regular physical NIC's.

 

Perhaps try installing the vmware tools plugin... I'm not sure if it's strictly required, as I've always had it installed :)  The linked post below indicates the vmxnet3 driver should be in unRAID by default.

 

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=11449.0

He probably had it set to "flexible" when he setup the VM (the default for at least some linux type VMs) which may have tried VMXNET2 not VMXNET3.  Changing it explicitly to VMXNET3 or E1000 fixes the connectivity problem with the preference going to VMXNET3.  You can also setup the ".msiEnabled" from within the GUI.  The only thing I haven't been able to edit from the GUI so far is the "passthru.map" - am hoping that is possible too.  Personally I would never setup an unRAID VM without the tools.  It makes me feel safer. 
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Yup, it was set to flexible at first... I however had no other option... Just installed a fresh ubuntu image that is going to take over sabnzbd/sickbeard/couchpotato and there I found the vmxnet3 adaptor and also used it..

 

How would I get this image to see a vmxnet3 ?

As BetaQuasi said you may have to install the VM tools to get the VMXNET3 option to show up - but don't know for sure.  The driver is included in unRAID5.0RC releases but it may not be selectable in vSphere client until the tools are installed.  At work so can't give you a graphic of the settings to change.  Initially I always set it to E1000 based on a post here - maybe in Johnm's Atlas thread but maybe not. 
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Thanks sofar !

 

If someone can give me some pointers on how to get it to work I would appreciate it. I set up an ubunto 32bit image and the option was there. I have no idea what kind of distro unraid is to be honoust so also not sure how to get the vm tools working in there.

 

It all seems to work though sofar !

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Thanks sofar !

 

If someone can give me some pointers on how to get it to work I would appreciate it. I set up an ubunto 32bit image and the option was there. I have no idea what kind of distro unraid is to be honoust so also not sure how to get the vm tools working in there.

 

It all seems to work though sofar !

 

This is what you need

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=11449.0

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Is it possible to install unraid on esxi datastore without flash drive?

 

otherwise I will end up with two USB flash drives! one for esxi  and other one for unraid

 

That's what i have. Two USB drives.

 

The usb drive is necessary because unraid license is tied to the USB drive.

 

You can use the free version without the usb.

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Helmonder:  What OS profile did you use when you set up the unRAID VM?  If vmxnet3 wasn't available, then it would be because of that profile.  There is no harm in using a Ubuntu 32-bit profile for the unRAID VM.

 

If you need to retroactively do this, remove the VM (but DON'T delete it), then recreate it using the Ubuntu 32-bit profile.  During this, point it at the already-existing VMDK file.  There are other ways to do this, but I'd recommend sticking to doing it via the vSphere client, as that will avoid any accidental changes that may hinder rather than help :)

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I used the one recommended in the atlas thread, I will check it out and make the changes.. It is running stable though and also seems fast enough so I might hold off a bit on it.

 

Yesterday I made an ubuntu32 vm and installed couch/sab/sick on it. Worked fine untill at the moment I rebooted it ended up in a low resolution message and since that I do not get video any more on it and it does not seem to boot fully.. Guess ill have to start over :-(

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That's unusual - I run exactly that for my Sab/Sick/Couch setup and it runs great.  I did use the Ubuntu Server 12.04 mini iso though, so it starts with a bare metal configuration and only adds what you want, as I have no use for an X environment.  (all command line driven, like unRAID.)

 

It's available here if you want to try it:

 

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD

 

Re: the ESXi without USB - absolutely possible, I just prefer to keep my datastore and ESXi installation separate for ease of recovery in a disaster situation.  Since ESXi is pretty much entirely loaded into RAM anyway (much like unRAID), it will hardly use the USB stick, except during reboots.

 

EDIT - actually I just got home from work and double checked - I'm using the Other Linux 2.6.x 32bit profile in mine.

 

 

 

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