Installing 3ware driver for ESXi 4 does not work?!

[prahn]

Hi!

I just installed ESXi 4 on a USB pen drive, it boots without a problem.

But I am using a 3ware 9650 RAID controller for my storage.

It runs with my "old" and modified ESXi 3.5 without a problem (installed 3ware driver via CLI).

I followed the manual at http://3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=15548 but I do not get it to work?!

When installing via "vSphere CLI" I get first this error:

"Vib signature is missing"

and on a 2nd try get this:

"Install operation failed: Insufficient space available on host (require 2 MB and only 1 MB available)."

I also installed the vMA applicance on a different ESX, added the new ESXi 4 as a target,

but this also does not work, I get another different error, when trying to install the

offline-bundle from 3ware:

$ vihostupdate.pl -server 192.168.1.4 -b ~/offline-bundle.zip -i

unpacking /home/vi-admin/offline-bundle.zip ...

metadata.zip.sig does not exist

signature mismatch : metadata.zip

Unable to unpack update package.

Am I too stupid??

Please help!

Best regards,

prahn

[Tong Zhang]

It's weird that vCLI failed to install.

Please check with your Window system that VCLI installed on.

Or you can look for another windows system to try with the vCLI installation.

[prahn]

Hi!

Thanks for your reply, but my problem is not "installing vCLI",

my problem is "installing the 3ware driver" via vCLI or via vMA.

?!

[prahn]

Could really noone help me with my problem?

Not anyone, who also has these behaviour??

I really do not want to start a news ESXi with version 3.5!

Please help!

Thank you!

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You can try running it at the console.

1) Copy the zip file to /tmp on your ESXi host.

2) At the console run the vim-cmd to put the host in maintenance mode and then esxupdate to patch the server.

/tmp # vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

'vim.Task:haTask-ha-host-vim.HostSystem.enterMaintenanceMode-1232'

/tmp # esxupdate --bundle=/tmp/AMCC_2.26.08.035vm40-offline_bundle-179560.zip update

Installing packages :cross_vm.. ########################################

Running ...

ok.

The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the

changes to be effective.

/tmp #

Dave

VMware Communities User Moderator

New book in town - vSphere Quick Start Guide -http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/08/12/new-book-in-town-vsphere-quick-start-guide/.

Do you have a system or PCI card working with VMDirectPath? Submit your specs to the Unofficial VMDirectPath HCL - http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=21.

[prahn]

Great, that worked!

Thank you a lot for this help.

Indeed, I tried your way first with the file "offline-bundle.zip" from the iso where the 3ware KB article points to.

This did not work with the same error "Vib signature is missing".

Then I googled for "AMCC 2.26.08.035" and found the ISO on theVMware site for ESX4 (not i indeed!):

I downloaded tis ISO, and used thezipfile you mentioned: AMCC_2.26.08.035vm40-offline_bundle-179560.zip

With this file it worked instantly?!

I don't know why, but it is running now.

I hope this will be stable... so there is an ESX driver installed now on ESXi... but the foundation is the same I guess.

Once again, thank you.

[castortroi]

Hello

You can try running it at the console.

1) Copy the zip file to /tmp on your ESXi host.

2) At the console run the vim-cmd to put the host in maintenance mode and then esxupdate to patch the server.

/tmp # vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

'vim.Task:haTask-ha-host-vim.HostSystem.enterMaintenanceMode-1232'

/tmp # esxupdate --bundle=/tmp/AMCC_2.26.08.035vm40-offline_bundle-179560.zip update

Installing packages :cross_vm.. ########################################

Running ...

ok.

The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the

changes to be effective.

/tmp #

Dave

VMware Communities User Moderator

New book in town - vSphere Quick Start Guide -[http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/08/12/new-book-in-town-vsphere-quick-start-guide/].

Do you have a system or PCI card working with VMDirectPath? Submit your specs to the Unofficial VMDirectPath HCL - .

</div>

I have esxi 4.0 isntalled and running on usb stick connected to server with 3ware Inc 9550SX SATA-RAID and 4x1TB. I did what Dave wrote this is exactly what is on

But my system still doesn't see raid controler. So I cannot create datastore. But when on the end I type /usr/sbin/vmkmod-install.sh I got

Error: Bootbank stage /tmp/stage/firmware/bank not exist

vmkload_mod -l shows :

3w-9xxx 0x41800d9f5000 0x7000 0x417fce79c140 0x2000 54 Yes

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0: 8015 MB, 8015282176 bytes

64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 7643 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0p1 5 900 917504 5 Extended

/dev/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0p4 * 1 4 4080 4 FAT16 &lt;32M

/dev/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0p5 5 254 255984 6 FAT16

/dev/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0p6 255 504 255984 6 FAT16

/dev/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0p7 505 614 112624 fc VMKcore

/dev/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0p8 615 900 292848 6 FAT16

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Can comebody help me with that?

[mcrombeen]

I had a similar driver installation with a Qlogic 10 Gb NIC. As mentioned above I had to unpackage all the zip files modify the vmware.xml and where ever it stated 4.0.0 I changed to 4.*. Then I packaged them all up with WInRAR as a new zip file with the same names. I had contacted vmware support and they did get back an informed me that they know of this issue with some of the drivers and have a PR to make this change in future drivers.

cheers

Marc