ESXi 6 M1015 passthrough no disks detected

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nry

Active Member
Feb 22, 2013
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Trying to consolidate certain aspects of my setup, part of this process involves moving my main ZFS storage array into the main ESXi box. Due to there being no support for ZFS in ESXi, I figured I'd just pass through the M1015 card through to an Ubuntu Server 14.04 VM and I'd be done.

Unfortunately it seems that Ubuntu isn't detecting any of the disks.

System spec:
- Supermicro X9SRL
- Xeon 1620v2
- 112GB RAM
- M1015 - flashed to IT mode (configured for passthrough)
- Chenbro CK23601 connected to M1015 with single cable
- 12x Hitachi 5K3000 - all connected to Chenbro expander
- OS: ESXi 6.0.0

Even though during boot the HBA is detecting all the disks fine, I wanted to eliminate any potential hardware issues so I dropped in a spare drive and installed Ubuntu Server 14.04 to it, did not configure any additional drivers and checked the list of available drives, all 12 were present.

Here is ESXi configured



PCI device configured on the VM



Within the Ubuntu VM, lspci shows the controller

Code:
# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 01)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 08)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 08)
00:07.7 System peripheral: VMware Virtual Machine Communication Interface (rev 10)
00:0f.0 VGA compatible controller: VMware SVGA II Adapter
00:11.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI bridge (rev 02)
00:15.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.1 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.2 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.3 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.4 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.5 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.6 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.7 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.1 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.2 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.3 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.4 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.5 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.6 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.7 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.1 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.2 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.3 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.4 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.5 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.6 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.7 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.1 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.2 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.3 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.4 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.5 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.6 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.7 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
03:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller: VMware PVSCSI SCSI Controller (rev 02)
0b:00.0 Ethernet controller: VMware VMXNET3 Ethernet Controller (rev 01)
13:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 [Falcon] (rev 03)
Can't see anything significant in dmesg ([ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset [ 0.000000] Initializing cg - Pastebin.com)

Disk output

Code:
# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes
4 heads, 32 sectors/track, 163840 cylinders, total 20971520 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00038f13

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048    20971519    10484736   83  Linux
Anyone got any suggestions on what I could possibly investigate next? I'm a little stuck!
 

whitey

Moderator
Jun 30, 2014
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Pssst, you seen the threads on this in the Linux forum/board?

High level I think this 'may' help you, I just updated to vSphere 6.0 U2 and no issues here.

You need to modify a kernel boot parameter.

mpt2sas.msix_disable=1 (for 4.3 or older kernels)
or
mpt3sas.msix_disable=1 (for 4.4 or newer kernels)

Added to kernel boot line parameters, adding here as well for prosperity's sake.

Under ubuntu or CentOS using grub2 to make it stick edit the /etc/default/grub to the following:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="mpt2sas.msix_disable=1"
(mpt3sas.msix_disable=1 for 4.4 or newer kernels)

Save file:

Then update grub2 files:

Ubuntu - update-grub
CentOS - grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg (BIOS based machines)
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg (UEFI based machines)
 
Last edited:

whitey

Moderator
Jun 30, 2014
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868
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Last edited:
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