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Installation > Uninstalling MegaRAID Storage Manager for VMWare > Installing MegaRAID Storage Manager Support on the VMWare ESX Operating System

Installing MegaRAID Storage Manager Support on the VMWare ESX Operating System

This section describes the product requirements needed to support the VMWare ESX operating system. Classic VMWare includes a Service Console that is derived from the Linux 2.4 kernel, but with reduced functionality.

The MSM server part cannot be installed directly in VMWare ESX 3i. Management is possible only through Common Information Model (CIM) providers. These CIM providers integrated into the ESX 3i system build an interface between the hardware driver of the LSI MegaRAID controller and remote applications, such as MSM. Management is performed through MSM installed on a remote machine (Linux/Windows). See VMWare ESX 3i Management through CIM and CMPI for more information.

The Linux rpm of MSM works under console with minimal changes. Hardware RAID is currently supported in ESX 3.x.

There is a known limitation that virtual drives that are created or deleted will not be reflected to the kernel. The workaround is to reboot the server or to run esxcfg-rescan <vmhba#> from COS shell.

The network communication is a key element for a proper setup. The communication between the ESXi CIM provider and the LSI management software is an active/passive combination, which requires a highly reliable network. Therefore, we recommend that you install the management on a VM within the ESXi. Follow these steps to install and configure MSM support on the VMWare ESX operating system.

1. Network Configuration of the ESXi Host:
2. VM Installation:

Install the operating system as usual, including the VMWare guest tools. The virtual network card should be linked to a Vswitch that has a VMKernel port attached. For a quick installation, no change is recommended.

3. MSM Installation:

Install MSM with the option “complete.”

4. VM Network Configuration:
5. Reboot and Login:

Reboot the VM and start MegaRAID Storage Manager. The ESXi server now appears in the list of the found hosts. You can now log in with the root account name and password of the ESXi Host.

Host Overview:

Figure 2 shows the name of the host ESXi server. In this example, the host ESXi server name is local.lsi.com.

Figure 2 Host ESXi Server Name

After you click Connect, you can now enter the user name and password to log in on the ESXi Host, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Login on the Host Server

After you log in, you can view the drives connected to the controller (the physical view), as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4 Physical View

Click the Logical tab to view the virtual drives connected to the controller (the logical view), as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 Logical View

Limitations of the Installation and Configurations

For more information about these limitations, see Differences in MSM for VMware ESXi.


DB09-000202-02 37857-00 Rev. C  August 2009
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