Recently I setup my Raspberry Pi 4B 8GB ESXi Cluster. After compling and installing the open-vm-tools for Arm64/AArch64 I got alot of messages regarding “Unknown ioctl 1976”. This happens due to missing “VMCI_SOCKETS” module load during startup. You can simply fix this by adding the following lines to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf:
blacklist vsock_loopback
blacklist vmw_vsock_virtio_transport_common
install vsock_loopback /usr/bin/true
install vmw_vsock_virtio_transport_common /usr/bin/true
Recently I tried to run a VMware vCenter Appliance (vCSA) on my Synology. Trying to import the provided OVA File results in an unplausible error, so I tried to convert it with the OVFTool thats provided by VMware on the installation disk. I converted or extracted the vmdk diskimages via OVFTool, its basically achieveable by calling ovftool.exe <ova> file.
After that I imported all vmdk images to my Virtual Machine Manager via Images -> Disk Images and started “importing” a virtual machine with the uploaded diskimages. Sadly Synology limits the maximum vDisks for new and imported virtual machines to 8. This is not a hard limit as Virtual Machine Manager is run by qemu and qemu limit is 256 disks.
So how about trying to add the disks after the virtual machine creation via command line? I was messing around with this but the vdisks are added via virtio-scsi and I found this hard to add the disks manually.
So lets see if we can achieve this a different way. I analysed the JavaScript used by Virtual Machine Manager. This can be found here “/volume1/@appstore/Virtualization/ui/virtualization.js”. There is even a check in it, that prompts you with an error if a machine has more than 8 vDisks. So how can we increase the maximum virtual machine attachable disks?
Open “/volume1/@appstore/Virtualization/ui/virtualization.js” and edit the value of “this.maxVdiskNum=8” from 8 to 16. Save the file, gzip it again via gzip -k virtualization.js and restart Virtual Machine Manager or your whole NAS.
However for a vCenter it takes sometime to setup the machine. Keep the first two disks with VirtIO and all other disks on SATA Setting.
Good Luck.
I’ve rented a lot of linux vps around the world for testing and hosting teamspeak and other stuff. Not every application runs on linux so I decided to build a small home server with a low power consumption.
I stumbled over the list of components in the hardwareluxx forums and build my system based on that components. ( Link )
Here is my list:
First of all I removed the Mini PCIe Wifi card from the mainboard as its not needed and plugged in the mSATA at the bottom of it. The small SSD can be used for the OS (Server 2012 R2) or as Host Cache for ESXi.
After putting all components together I enabled all bios settings allowing power savings and switched of the soundcard etc. I also tried to undervolt the CPU with the VCore Offset and got it down to -0,235mV.
Here are the results (power measurement):
| ESXi 5.5 U1 | Windows Server 2012 R2 | |
| Idle | 18.2 Watts | 11.1 Watts |
| Load | 39.6 Watts | 35.8 Watts |
Make sure all drivers are installed and no usb devices are plugged in. The usb devices may prevent reaching a package c-state of more than 80.
The network drivers are a little tricky. For ESXi 5.5 follow this guide ESXi 6.0 includes drivers for Intel I217V and for Server 2012 follow this guide.
Good luck and post your results.
As I’m to lazy to add a floppy drive to my VMs for adding the pvscsi drivers, I created an ISO from pvscsi-Windows2008.flp.
Simply dismount the windows install disk, mount pvscsi-Windows2008.iso, select the drivers and remount the windows install disk.
Download from here: pvscsi-Windows2008.iso
So how to display health status of a Dell Perc 5/i (LSI 8404E) in ESXi incuding battery and raid status?
Nothing easier than that. Most admins know the Dell Perc 5/i is a LSI 8404E with firmware and bootloader from dell.
Download the latest LSI MegaRAID SMIS Provider for VMWare from here: http://www.lsi.com/search/pages/Results.aspx?k=VMWare%20SMIS&v1=-write
Upload the VIB File to your ESXi and install via commandline.
esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/vmware-esx-provider-lsiprovider.vib –no-sig-check
Result should be:
Installation Result
Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
Reboot Required: true
VIBs Installed: LSI_bootbank_lsiprovider_500.04.V0.38-0005
VIBs Removed:
VIBs Skipped:
Simply reboot your ESXi and now you can view the health status on your server.
UPDATE: LSI was aquired by Avago and Avago was aquired by Broadcom.
You may find the correct download here: http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/dt_esxi50_lsi_2108_v534/dHRAYnRqZWRiZHAlZA==
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