Help needed VMware ESXi 6.5 issues with HBA

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nthu9280

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2016
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San Antonio, TX
Hope you all had good holidays!

I'm having weird issues with HBA on my ESXi 6.5 homelab and need your insight
.
MB: S2600Cp2J
HBA: 2x RS25KB080 flashed to LSI FW 9205-8e. These are internal but based on the C0 stepping of 2308 and could not be flashed to 9207-8i as discussed in the Intel Xeon e5-2670 pricing thread. (search did not work or I would link to the post in that monster thread :) )

Not sure it's a FW issue (20.00.06.00) on one of them or VMW drivers / VIB incompatibilities. All the SAS Drives show degraded but no SMART issues and ran badblocks before putting in service. I've also experienced VM file corruption on one of the drives also. Using Intel OEM 8087-8087 cables so hopefully that is not contributing factor. I guess I can first update the flash to 20.00.07 so both cards have the same FW.

I know LSI has the tools on ESXi but not having much luck on having them recognize the cards. Suspect missing LSI modules. My google fu has failed me also on MPTLib2 error I'm getting on SAS2IRCU. I love the
LOCATE' option on that tool.

See attached command output and screen clip for more details.

esxi601.JPG
 

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pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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Dunno about your exact issue, so probably not much help, but my guess is that it's most likely either twitchy firmware on those cards and or perhaps vib related. I do see the 25KB080 on the HCL for 6.5U1, maybe try updating ESXi to the latest? Have you tested the cards with the stock Intel firmware under ESXi?
 

nthu9280

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Feb 3, 2016
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Updated the FW to make both cards to match 20.00.07. Did not resolve degraded drives alert.
Also, still can't figure out sas2ircu MPTLib2 error.
 

nthu9280

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Feb 3, 2016
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Update - I needed disable lsi_msgpt2 to use mpt2sas.
Now sas2ircu & sas2flash both work :)

[root@ESXI601A:/opt/lsi/bin] ./sas2flash -o -listall
LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 20.00.00.00 (2014.09.18)
Copyright (c) 2008-2014 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved

Advanced Mode Set

Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2308_2(B0)

Num Ctlr FW Ver NVDATA x86-BIOS PCI Addr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

0 SAS2308_2(B0) 20.00.07.00 14.01.00.09 07.39.02.00 00:04:00:00
1 SAS2308_2(B0) 20.00.07.00 14.01.00.09 07.39.02.00 00:05:00:00

Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
Exiting SAS2Flash.

The below documentation is for 12gbps and Native vs Async drivers

***
Troubleshooting native drivers in ESXi 5.5 or later

VMware Knowledge Base
ESXi 5.5 introduces a new Native Device Driver Architecture Part 2

If you are running ESXi 5.5 or higher AND the mpt3sas driver was installed. It’s required to disable the lsi_msgpt3 native driver in order to use the mpt3sas driver. Run the following command then reboot the system:

esxcli system module set --enabled=false --module=lsi_msgpt3
***
 
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nthu9280

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Feb 3, 2016
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Just wanted to update the thread and post the link to VMware communities post that resolved my original issue "Normal, Degraded" on some of the SAS drives. Mine is not a HP system but the 2 of the SSDs are with HP FW in Intel P4308CP2J system with Intel OEM HBA flashed to 20.07 FW. These are different drives than in the OP but exhibited the same issue. SATA HDDs as well as another SAS SSD were showing normal. Anyway the following solution provided by VMware support worked in my situation also.

Disks degraded in ESXi |VMware Communities


Code:
esxcli storage nmp satp rule add -s VMW_SATP_LOCAL --device <your deviceid> --option="enable_local"

esxcli storage core claiming reclaim -d <your deviceid>

esxcli storage core claimrule load

esxcli storage core claimrule run
 

myrison

Member
Jan 26, 2011
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Adding in a recent experience to save future Googlers time when trying to solve this same problem.

I am running a Super Micro X9DR7-LN4F motherboard with an onboard LSI2308 6Gbps HBA. I am running vmware 6.7 U3.

The LSI 2308 is running v20.00 firmware and even after installing the recommended driver on the vmware compatibility matrix for this board/card (found here), the board was not recognized by vmware as a valid HBA.

What I didn't realize until stumbling on this thread and a few others (which generally were about driver conflicts with the 12Gbps cards, not the 6Gb as the 2308 uses), I realized that the same problem was affecting the LSI 2308. The thread above mentions both the msgpt2 and msgpt3 driver, but it looks like the solution above actually involved the msgpt3 driver.

For the 6Gbps cards, the solution is to disable the msgpt2 driver using the command below.
esxcli system module set --enabled=false --module=lsi_msgpt2
Once you do this, esx will use the mpt2sas driver, which allows the HBA to work correctly with ESX. You can check this via the cli as follows:

Code:
[root@esxi:~] esxcli storage core adapter list
HBA Name  Driver    Link State  UID                   Capabilities  Description
--------  --------  ----------  --------------------  ------------  --------------------------------------------------------------------------
vmhba1    mpt2sas   link-n/a    sas.500304800ec4ba00                (0000:01:00.0) Avago (LSI) Logic / Symbios Logic Avago (LSI)2308_1
Thank you to the OP and those above for starting this thread. Not sure I'd have solved it without the pointers here.
 
Last edited:

kendalladkins

New Member
May 5, 2020
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So, I am hoping the folks in this forum can help. I have an LSI 2308 6Gb controller as well. I have updated the bios and now a brand new install of 6.7 hangs at "lsi_msgpt2 loaded successfully". I have tried to disable the "lsi_msgpt2" module without success. I am missing something but I am not sure what. Does anyone know how to disable the "lsi_msgpt2" module before or during the esxi install process?
 

vangoose

Active Member
May 21, 2019
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So, I am hoping the folks in this forum can help. I have an LSI 2308 6Gb controller as well. I have updated the bios and now a brand new install of 6.7 hangs at "lsi_msgpt2 loaded successfully". I have tried to disable the "lsi_msgpt2" module without success. I am missing something but I am not sure what. Does anyone know how to disable the "lsi_msgpt2" module before or during the esxi install process?
Why don't you install with the hba removed? Assuming you install esxi to usb or a small sata disk.