Problem with LSI 12Gb SAS HBA card unknow with ESXi 5.1 & 5.5 (Dell)

You added a LSI 12Gb SAS card in your server (Dell R20, R630, R730 or others) and the card is unknown by the server? Here there is the solution, you can just follow the post step by step. 😉

The problem come from VMware. Basically, upgrading VMware ESXi firmwares (in 5.1 or 5.5) drops the driver of this card: LSI 12Gb SAS 9300-8e HBA (OEM). I think other LSI cards should be concerned. Your card is not listed in the bios, you can checking the material inventory in iDRAC interface. So, the goal will to add the .VIB package of this card in ESXi system.  

Download the VMware driver:

In first time, download the ESXi mpt3sas driver CD includes version 07.00.00.00.1vmw of the LSI mpt3sas drivers, which enables support for LSI MPT Fusion based SAS3 (SAS 12.0 Gb/s) controllers: Here

You have to extract the .ZIP file and use it: “mpt3sas-07.00.00.00.1vmw-offline_bundle-2116669.zip”

Enable SSH access from ESXi 5.1 or 5.5 node:

Go directly to the ESXi host with vSphere Client and select “Configuration” tab.

Then select “Security Profile” in Software menu.

In the Services area, select “Properties”.

Select “SSH” then click on the button “Options…”.

Check “Start And Stop with host”, then “Start” and confirm with “OK”.

Put in Maintenance Mode the ESXi host:

Right-click on the host in the VMware cluster, then select “Enter Maintenance Mode”.

Confirm enter in maintenance mode for this server.

Uploading “.ZIP” packages on the ESXi host:

On ESXi host interface, select “Configuration” tab.

Select “Storage” in Configuration menu, then a datastore for uploading “.ZIP” files.

Browse your datastore (right-click on it), “Browse Datastore”.

You can upload the .ZIP file on the datastore.

Installing “.ZIP” file (offline bundle):

Run an SSH session (putty) with the root account of the host. Now you can deploy the package using esxcli command: esxcli software vib update –d BUNDLE LOCALISATION

Example, the offline bundle file has been uploaded on local datastore on ESXi server named “PoC datastore”.

If the “MPT3SAS” package is already deployed:

esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/PoC_datastore/mpt3sas-07.00.00.00.1vmw-offline_bundle-2116669.zip

If the “MPT3SAS” package is NOT deployed:

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/PoC_datastore/mpt3sas-07.00.00.00.1vmw-offline_bundle-2116669.zip

A message confirms the update completed successfully of the bundle.

You need to restart the ESXi node with command: “reboot“.

When the restart will be completed, you have to confirm that “MPT3SAS” driver is used by the LSI card with the following command: “esxcfg-scsidevs –a”

If the “lsi-msgpt3” is used, you need to remove it with the following command: “esxcli software vib remove -n lsi-msgpt3”. This operation requires of restarting the host.

Your ESXi host should see now the SAS adapter and you should be able to connect the server to SAN storage for doing zoning. For example, for Dell MD3420 controller.

Hope this post will help you for your project (integration or migration)! 🙂

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