My LSI adapters and ESXi 6.5
Posted by jpluimers on 2019/05/03
So I won’t forget:
- LSI – MegaRAID SAS 9361-8i:
- LSI – MegaRAID SAS 9260-8i:
Direct download links in September 2017:
- 9260-8i firmware Version 12.15.0-0248, issued 20160518 (despite the 12.15.0-0239 in the filenames):
- https://docs.broadcom.com/docs-and-downloads/docs-and-downloads/raid-controllers/raid-controllers-common-files/12.15.0-0239_MR_2108_SAS_FW_2.130.403-4660.zip
- https://docs.broadcom.com/docs/1235503912.15.0-0239txt
- [Archive.is] https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/thinkservers/fw_avago_hwr_9260_9280_12.15.0-0248.txt
- https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/thinkservers/fw_avago_hwr_9260_9280_12.15.0-0248.zip
- 9361-8i firmware Version 24.21.0-0012 (MR 6.14)
- 9260/9361 SIMS provider:
- MegaCLI including ESXi support
- https://docs.broadcom.com/docs-and-downloads/raid-controllers/raid-controllers-common-files/8-07-07_MegaCLI.txt
- https://docs.broadcom.com/docs-and-downloads/raid-controllers/raid-controllers-common-files/8-07-07_MegaCLI.zip
- Note: more recent versions of MegaCLI do not cover VMware any more; see [WayBack] Trying to see RAID drive health in ESXi 6.5, drives not showing. : vmware
- StorCLI including ESXi support
- MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM)
[WayBack] How to upgrade LSI MegaRaid SAS controller firmware using FreeDOS – Teksupport.in
Notes:
- The 9260 8i has been end-of-life for a while, so it has disappeared from the products page but can still be found via https://www.broadcom.com/support/download-search when searching for
MegaRAID SAS 9260-8iin theProduct Namefield.- It might not work at all on ESXi 6.5: [WayBack] ESXi 6.5 Install Doesn’t Recognize LSI 9260-8i … |VMware Communities
- The SMIS Providers are the same for many adapters. The file is called *
lsiprovider*.*note SIMS should have been written as SIM-S and is an implementation of CIM and WBEM: - MegaCLI is only valid for up until 92xx adapters; the successor is StorCLI. A comparison table is at [WayBack] LSI Command Line Interface cross reference MegaCLI vs twcli vs StorCLI (which of course omits the 3ware twcli) and can be useful to do things the vSphere clients cannot do like:
- StorCLI cv command (to display the CacheVault information) is not in the above table, but is documented [WayBack] Jans Techblog: Avago (formerly LSI) Controller and Expander Infos / Useful storcli Commands
LSI provider install (SIM-S, SIMS, CIM, WEBM):
- Download the latest version (at the time of writing VMW-ESX-5.5.0-lsiprovider-500.04.V0.66-0002-5751577.zip)
- Unzip into
/tmp esxcli software vib install -f -v /tmp/vmware-esx-provider-lsiprovider.vib- wait for the VIB install to complete
- suspend or shutdown all VMs
- reboot the ESXi machine
esxcli system wbem set --enable true- Browse to https://192.168.71.91/ui/#/host/monitor/hardware/storage to see if SIM-S is working
MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM) operation notes
A few tricky things to get right:
- waiting: MSM is unbelievably slow (starting on SSD takes 10 seconds; discovery 30; connecting to host 60 – without any indication something is happening; fetching host data another 60;
- old MSM versions are unstable (especially 14.x and lower), so keep current
- ensure the hosts file on both the ESXi and Windows side match (otherwise it won’t discover anything, or discover as
0.0.0.0) - enable promiscuous mode on your vSwitch
- if all else fails, disable any firewalls then enable bit by bit to see where it went wrong
Great installation steps:
- [WayBack] MegaRAID Storage Manager für VMware ESXi 5.5 Server – Thomas-Krenn-Wiki
- [WayBack] Manage an LSI MegaRAID card in ESXi host remotely with MSM | Kihltech
- [WayBack] How to install LSI MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM) on VMware ESXi 5.5 – Serenity-Networks
MegaCLI installs
- Download the latest version that has VMware support (at the time of writing 8-07-07_MegaCLI.zip)
- Unzip into
/tmp esxcli software vib install -f -v /tmp/VmwareMN/vmware-esx-MegaCli-8.07.07.vib- wait for the VIB install to complete
Now you can the command /opt/lsi/MegaCLI/MegaCli (yes the casing of these two is different!) but you must to it in that directory, or ensure the LD_LIBARY_PATH contains /opt/lsi/MegaCLI.
StorCLI installs
Based on [WayBack] StorCLI unter VMware vSphere installieren – Thomas-Krenn-Wiki
- Download the latest version that has VMware support (at the time of writing 1.23.02_StorCLI.zip)
- Recursively uncompress the ZIP file into
/tmp** esxcli software vib install -f -v /tmp/storcli_All_OS/Vmware-OP/vmware-esx-storcli-1.23.02.vib- wait for the VIB install to complete
Now you can the command /opt/lsi/storcli/storcli but you must to it in that directory, or ensure the LD_LIBARY_PATH contains /opt/lsi/storcli.
Example:
execute-storcli.sh /cALL show all | grep 'Controller = \|Model = \|Serial Number = \|Firmware'a
- From the documentation, it’s unclear which of the below VMware* directories you need to install from. Luckily I [WayBack] lsi_utl_sraidmr_storcli-1.16.14_vmwesx_32-64.txt which explains
The vib file in "Vmware-NDS/" folder works with native driver. The vib file in "Vmware-MN/" folder works with VMKlinux driver.
So I did a bit more searching based on the files in the VMware directories and came up with this list:
storcli_All_OS/Vmware/storcli.zip- Looks like it targets ESXi 3.x and older
storcli_All_OS/Vmware-MN/vmware-esx-storcli-1.23.02.vibwitstorcli_All_OS/Vmware-MN/VMWARE_MN_Readme.txt- Targets the
vmklinuxdrivers that are being phased out with ESXi 5.5 and up
- Targets the
storcli_All_OS/Vmware-OP/vmware-esx-storcli-1.23.02.vibwithstorcli_All_OS/Vmware-OP/VMWARE_MN_NDS_Readme.txt- Targets the
New Driverarchitecture introduced with ESXi 5.5 and used more and more since then
- Targets the
Background reading:
- [WayBack] ESXi 5.5 introduces a new Native Device Driver Architecture Part 1 | virtuallyGhetto
- [WayBack] ESXi 5.5 introduces a new Native Device Driver Architecture Part 2 | virtuallyGhetto (LSI device drivers for ESXi 5.5 and up are “New Device” model)
- [WayBack] VMware Communities: Message List – Re: LSI VMware driver: “MN” versus “OP” ??? / [WayBack] LSI VMware driver: “MN” versus “OP” ??? |VMware Communities
- [WayBack] Native Driver support in Dell Customized VMware ESXi 6.5
** unzip doesn’t work:
# unzip -d /tmp/ 1.23.02_StorCLI.zip
Archive: 1.23.02_StorCLI.zip
inflating: 1.23.02_StorCLI.txt
unzip: short read
But a combination of 7za and unzip does work:
# 7za x -o/tmp/ 1.23.02_StorCLI.zip 7-Zip (a) [32] 16.02 : Copyright (c) 1999-2016 Igor Pavlov : 2016-05-21 p7zip Version 16.02 (locale=en_US.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,32 bits,20 CPUs Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L v4 @ 1.80GHz (406F1),ASM,AES-NI) Scanning the drive for archives: 1 file, 48778476 bytes (47 MiB) Extracting archive: 1.23.02_StorCLI.zip -- Path = 1.23.02_StorCLI.zip Type = zip Physical Size = 48778476 Everything is Ok Files: 2 Size: 48928561 Compressed: 48778476 # unzip -d /tmp/ /tmp/storcli_All_OS.zip Archive: /tmp/storcli_All_OS.zip creating: storcli_All_OS/ creating: storcli_All_OS/EFI/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/EFI/license.txt creating: storcli_All_OS/EFI/UDK/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/EFI/UDK/license.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/EFI/UDK/storcli.efi creating: storcli_All_OS/FreeBSD/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/FreeBSD/FreeBSD_readme.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/FreeBSD/license.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/FreeBSD/storcli.tar inflating: storcli_All_OS/FreeBSD/storcli64.tar creating: storcli_All_OS/Linux/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Linux/license.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Linux/LINUX_Readme.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Linux/storcli-1.23.02-1.noarch.rpm creating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-OEL-Sparc/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-OEL-Sparc/license_OELSparc.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-OEL-Sparc/storcli64-1.23.02-1.sparc64.rpm creating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-ppc/ creating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-ppc/Big Endian/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-ppc/Big Endian/license.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-ppc/Big Endian/storcli.tar creating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-ppc/Little Endian/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-ppc/Little Endian/license.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-ppc/Little Endian/Readme.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Linux-ppc/Little Endian/storcli64_1.23.02_ppc64el.deb creating: storcli_All_OS/Solaris/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Solaris/license.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Solaris/SOLARIS_Readme.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Solaris/storcli.pkg creating: storcli_All_OS/Solaris Sparc/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Solaris Sparc/license.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Solaris Sparc/storcli.pkg creating: storcli_All_OS/Ubuntu/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Ubuntu/read_me.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Ubuntu/storcli_1.23.02_all.deb creating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware/license.txt creating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware/Linux/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware/Linux/storcliKL-1.23.02-1.noarch.rpm inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware/Rel_read_me.txt.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware/storcli.zip creating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware/Windows/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware/Windows/StorCLIKL.zip creating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware-MN/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware-MN/license.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware-MN/vmware-esx-storcli-1.23.02.vib inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware-MN/VMWARE_MN_Readme.txt creating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware-OP/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware-OP/license.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware-OP/vmware-esx-storcli-1.23.02.vib inflating: storcli_All_OS/Vmware-OP/VMWARE_MN_NDS_Readme.txt creating: storcli_All_OS/Windows/ inflating: storcli_All_OS/Windows/license.txt inflating: storcli_All_OS/Windows/storcli.exe inflating: storcli_All_OS/Windows/storcli64.exe inflating: storcli_All_OS/Windows/WIN_ReadMe.txt
9260-8i firmware update
- Download the latest firmware (at the time of writing 12.15.0-0239_MR_2108_SAS_FW_2.130.403-4660.zip) into
/tmp unzip -d /tmp/ /tmp/12.15.0-0239_MR_2108_SAS_FW_2.130.403-4660.zip- Find out the controller number
- Where
0is the controller number, execute/opt/lsi/storcli/storcli /c0 download file=/tmp/mr2108fw.rom - Wait for the firmware update to complete
- Suspend or shutdown all VMs
- Reboot
–jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
Andrew said
And what if i don’t see the service running on my ESXi 6.7 after applying the VIB and restarting the host?
jpluimers said
I am not sure: I have not upgraded to 6.7 yet.