UnRAID on VMWare ESXi with Raw Device Mapping


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If you are using VT-d,x

 

Then drive temps and spindowns "should" be the same on virtual unRAID as it is on bare metal unRAID

.

 

hello johnm,

test done with physical access to drives => issue is the same as with VT-d in the VM like you thought: no drive temps and spinup-down continuously.

 

so it is an Unraid 5B14 OR an adaptec+Asus issue

but not an ESXi issue

 

I saw that most of you on the thread are using IBM BR10i. Is there a reason for that ? I suppose i should test my conf with one of these cards, right?

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I am using M1015's and SASLP-MV8's in my boxes.

The BR10i is pretty much obsolete going forward  since it cant use any drives larger then 2TB.

If they ever patch that, then it might have life again. but it is pretty much end of life if it looks like.

 

if you already have one, then it should be a decent card for 2TB and smaller drives.

 

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Looks like the the ESXi solution is not working as well as I hoped, after the drives get spun down and then up again I get red balls and missing drives all over the place :(

dont use beta14, use 12a or an older version.

Okay will try in about 1,5 hours, fortunately data rebuild works fine ;)

Try'd 12a, didnt help, still got issues with missing and redballing.

What would the impact be if I go back to 4.7? Would that even work?

Is there a 'recommend' unRAID version to use in ESXi?

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Axe mans question got cut in the split.  I'll answer it here to keep on topic.

 

On a more related topic, how does running th 5.0 update work on this setup? will esxi kill anything?

 

Switching from 4.1 to 5.0 is pretty simple.  there are several ways to go about it. the problem with the upgrade is if you are using custom drivers (OEM.tgz). you might not have support in in 5.0 with those devices.

 

A little research first. followed possibly booting up with 5.0 on a second flash drive first to make sure all of your devices are found. would be your best migration path.

 

 

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Here are the options if you go ESXi

1 drive= ESXi + datastore for VMDK.  If you want to use the "extra" space on this drive, you *could* create a virtual drive on a portion of this space and use that virtual drive as a disk in your UnRAID array....you could also use the virtual drive for the UnRAID cache drive.

 

 

Can anyone provide a tutorial in order to set up a virtual drive as an unRaid cache drive? Been trying to set one up but the virtual drive does not appear in unRaid.

 

My setup:

7 x 2TB drives connected to IBM M1015 (pass-through)

1 x 400GB SATA cache drive connected to motherboard SATA port and RDMed to unRaid.

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thanks john - ran the update last night, it was pretty smooth. i got my sata data store upgraded, but the NFS based one (from unraid) doesn't have that option.

 

Does that make a difference? also, after going to 5, did you upgrade the VM to version 8 ? or will that wreak havoc?

 

thanks again! eagerly waiting for 5.0 on unraid to go final.

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So for I have only installed some of  my New guests as VM8's.

 

My existing guests need none of the new features (that I am aware of).

 

i have the "Why fix what aint broke?" mentality when it comes to my (virtual) servers.

I play with servers at work to much to want to deal with them at home.

 

 

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So for I have only installed some of  my New guests as VM8's.

 

My existing guests need none of the new features (that I am aware of).

 

i have the "Why fix what aint broke?" mentality when it comes to my (virtual) servers.

I play with servers at work to much to want to deal with them at home.

 

lol if that was the case, i'd still be on WHSv1, adding low 1TB drives. here i am now running esxi, unraid, and even an Openvpn appliance. so much has changed over the last 6 or so months.

 

i upgraded all the other machines, including an sbs 2011, and a win7 w.o. issue, but didn't want to touch the unraid machine.

 

i'll leave this one alone though :-)

 

thanks for ur replies!

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  • 1 month later...

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the pci device pass-through working on the X7SBE tonight. VT and VT-D are both enabled in the bios so I don't know what else to do.

 

A quick search found a mailing list conversation aboutX7SBE VT-D problems in Xen:

after a few tests, i can confirm that VT-d on Supermicro X7SBE/X7SB4

doesn't work at all.

I assume this has to do with invalid ACPI table content.

 

Searching for X7SB4 & VT-D also yields a few posts about it not working with that similar board.

Not sure if you've tried updating to the latest bios or not but I just got VT-d working on my X7SBE with the September 2011 bios (2.0).  Passthrough appears to be working with 2.0 just fine.  I haven't actually set anything up yet but just spent all weekend trying finally just an hour ago I upgraded the bios and got it to work.  I got it from this list.
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  • 2 months later...

Hi all,

 

I tried to do some search on this now lenghty topic but without success. I've installed Unraid under ESXi 5. I have an LSI 1068E based card which is recognized by VMware. However, as I don't have a VT-d supported board, I have to use RDM. So, I created my RDM and assign those to the Unraid VM. After booting in Unraid, I can see all the drives but without much details (I only see the drive name and the size). This is very different from the complete identification I'm getting when booting directly Unraid on bare metal. My problem is that I have identified all my drives correctly and know exactly which sd device is which physical drive but when I select one of those in the select box in Unraid (those under the column "Identification"), it reload the page and I'm back to the "no device" selection.

 

At first, I was thinking it was related to problem with /dev/disk/by-path but 1) apparently it is not used anymore (now using /sys/dev/block) and 2) I can see my drives on both place anyway.

 

I've looked at the log and there is nothing. Each time I select a device, the log refresh with the following:

 

May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: unRAID driver removed
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: unRAID driver 2.1.3 installed
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (1): import 0 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: disk0 missing
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (2): import 1 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: disk1 missing
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (3): import 2 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: disk2 missing
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (4): import 3 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: disk3 missing
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (5): import 4 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: disk4 missing
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (6): import 5 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: disk5 missing
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (7): import 6 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: disk6 missing
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (: import 7 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: disk7 missing
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (9): import 8 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: disk8 missing
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (10): import 9 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: md: disk9 missing
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (11): import 10 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (12): import 11 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (13): import 12 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (14): import 13 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (15): import 14 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (16): import 15 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (17): import 16 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (18): import 17 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (19): import 18 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (20): import 19 0,0
May 8 12:05:57 fileserver kernel: mdcmd (21): import 20 0,0

 

Doesn't say much except that it doesn't recognize the disk I'm selecting. Even if I use a VMDK that I assign as a drive, I get the same result.

 

Is this something that has been reported before? Is there a known fix?

 

Thank you.

 

ehfortin

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Found the problem. If you someone has the issue where Unraid is showing sd drives but no mention about the serial number of the disk (which make it impossible to add in Unraid), you just have to use "vmkfstools -z /vmfs/devices/disk/vml.xxxx diskname.vmdk -a lsilogic" while creating the RDM instead of the "- r" switch that is documented in the official procedure that is published at http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=14695.0

 

Hope this is useful.

 

ehfortin

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  • 2 months later...

I been using 5.0 beta 8 on my esxi and has been working well. So i decided to try RC5 which told me to copy the two files over: bzimage and bzroot. Made a new .vmdk file and added it to esxi. It only gives me basic key and wont read my pro key. Not sure if its an esxi thing or rc5 thing. USB flash drive is mounted as well and added.

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  • 7 months later...

With "Remote Tech Support" enabled, use WinSCP to connect to ESXi, and add there two lines to the /etc/vmware/passthru.map file:

 

 

# Marvell Technologies, Inc. MV64460/64461/64462 System Controller, Revision B
11ab  6485  d3d0     false

 

Sorry guys...I know that this is an old thread but it is also the most relevant to this question...

 

I am running ESXi 5.1 and it is seeing both of my MV8 as well as my onboard Marvell controller (same exact chipset as the MV8) just fine.  Do I still need to make the edit shown above or is that only to get ESXi to be able to passthrough the controllers.  I know that I still need to edit the VMX but wasn't sure if the prior step is required for me.

 

John

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