Hi,
I've been using Solaris 11.3 with a LSI controller in a physical server for the last few weeks without any problem. Solaris recognize the LSI controller and all my NIC and I was getting very good performance result so I can see that the drivers are good.
Now, I installed ESXI 6 on the same server, did a PCI passthrough of the LSI controller and of one of my NIC and assign those to a new Solaris 11.3 VM. When I boot the CD to install Solaris, it start booting, display "Probing for device nodes..." and stop there for a while. Then, it goes with "Requesting System Maintenance Mode" followed by "Console login service(s) cannot run" and then wait for the username for system maintenance".
If I remove the LSI controller from the VM but keep the NIC, it will go through. Re-adding the LSI controller will make the VM stopping just after saying "SunOS Release 5.11 Version 11.3 64-bit".
So, I don't understand what the issue is as the same LSI card is detected and work fine with Solaris 11.3 on physical server but not when the LSI card is physical on a virtual server.
Any idea of what may be the issue? I assume it has something to do with how ESXI handle the passthrough at the VM level and that's why I've wrote this here instead of in the Solaris section.
I'll continue googling on this but if somebody has a solution or know what has to be adjusted to make it work, it would be great.
Thank you.
ehfortin
I've been using Solaris 11.3 with a LSI controller in a physical server for the last few weeks without any problem. Solaris recognize the LSI controller and all my NIC and I was getting very good performance result so I can see that the drivers are good.
Now, I installed ESXI 6 on the same server, did a PCI passthrough of the LSI controller and of one of my NIC and assign those to a new Solaris 11.3 VM. When I boot the CD to install Solaris, it start booting, display "Probing for device nodes..." and stop there for a while. Then, it goes with "Requesting System Maintenance Mode" followed by "Console login service(s) cannot run" and then wait for the username for system maintenance".
If I remove the LSI controller from the VM but keep the NIC, it will go through. Re-adding the LSI controller will make the VM stopping just after saying "SunOS Release 5.11 Version 11.3 64-bit".
So, I don't understand what the issue is as the same LSI card is detected and work fine with Solaris 11.3 on physical server but not when the LSI card is physical on a virtual server.
Any idea of what may be the issue? I assume it has something to do with how ESXI handle the passthrough at the VM level and that's why I've wrote this here instead of in the Solaris section.
I'll continue googling on this but if somebody has a solution or know what has to be adjusted to make it work, it would be great.
Thank you.
ehfortin