For my work i had to install a supermicro server with ESXi 5.1. This server had a adaptec 3405 raid card which works fine with ESXi 5.x but you can’t see the health status of the array(s) in the VSphere Client. After a lot of messing around with esxi drivers i did not get this to work. There is however a way to monitor the array status and this is done from a guest OS (in my case windows 8), or if you have one, another server.
To get this working you need to follow the following steps:
- Download cim_vmware_v7_30_18837.zip from adaptec. If you can’t find it, let me know in the comments and i will mail it to you.
- Extract vmware-esx-provider-arcconf.vib from the zip file. It is located in cim\esxi5_0\cim
- Install the VIB using esxcli (google it if you don’t know how)
- Reboot? Not sure if this is needed.
- Now install remote arcconf also found in the ZIP file. Arcconf is available for linux and windows. I used the windows version.
- Open an elevated command prompt and run the following commands:
arcconf SETVMCREDENTIAL 192.168.1.1 5989 esxiUser esxiPassword
arcconf getconfig 1
The first command sets the connection info to your ESXi host, 192.168.1.1 is the IP, 5989 is the default TCP port, esxiUser the user and esxiPassword the password. The account needs administrator permissions to make this work. I will try to find out if an read only account is possible.
The second command gets the config/status of the first adapter on the ESXI machine. You can easily write a script to fetch the status and email it using powershell for example. I am going to write such a script and will post it here when finished.
UPDATE: You can find the script here: https://www.tuser.nl/2013/04/19/adaptec-raidstatus-script-for-esxi/
UPDATE 2: Please read the post from Christoph below (thanks!). An additional piece of software is needed to make this work.
The output of the command should be something like this:
Controllers found: 1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Controller information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Controller Status : Optimal
Channel description : SAS/SATA
Controller Model : Adaptec 3405
Controller Serial Number : 8C421XXXXXX
Physical Slot : 3
Temperature : 47 C/ 116 F (Normal)
Installed memory : 128 MB
Copyback : Disabled
Background consistency check : Disabled
Automatic Failover : Enabled
Global task priority : High
Stayawake period : Disabled
Spinup limit internal drives : 0
Spinup limit external drives : 0
Defunct disk drive count : 0
Logical devices/Failed/Degraded : 1/0/0
NCQ status : Enabled
--------------------------------------------------------
Controller Version Information
--------------------------------------------------------
BIOS : 5.2-0 (17342)
Firmware : 5.2-0 (17342)
Driver : 1.2-1 (29800)
Boot Flash : 5.2-0 (17342)
--------------------------------------------------------
Controller Battery Information
--------------------------------------------------------
Status : Charging
Over temperature : No
Capacity remaining : 98 percent
Time remaining (at current draw) : 5 days, 10 hours, 48 minutes
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Logical device information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Logical device number 0
Logical device name : R5
RAID level : 5
Status of logical device : Optimal
Size : 420290 MB
Stripe-unit size : 256 KB
Read-cache mode : Enabled
Write-cache mode : Enabled (write-back)
Write-cache setting : Enabled (write-back)
Partitioned : No
Protected by Hot-Spare : No
Bootable : Yes
Failed stripes : No
Power settings : Disabled
--------------------------------------------------------
Logical device segment information
--------------------------------------------------------
Segment 0 : Present (Controller:1,Enclosure:0,Slot:0) BJA0PAXXXXXX
Segment 1 : Present (Controller:1,Enclosure:0,Slot:1) BJA0PAXXXXXX
Segment 2 : Present (Controller:1,Enclosure:0,Slot:2) BJA0PAXXXXXX
Segment 3 : Present (Controller:1,Enclosure:0,Slot:3) BJA0PAXXXXXX
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Physical Device information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Device #0
Device is a Hard drive
State : Online
Supported : Yes
Transfer Speed : SAS 3.0 Gb/s
Reported Channel,Device(T:L) : 0,0(0:0)
Reported Location : Enclosure 0, Slot 0
Reported ESD(T:L) : 2,0(0:0)
Vendor : FUJITSU
Model : MBA3147RC
Firmware : 0103
Serial number : BJA0PAXXXXXX
World-wide name : 500000E115XXXXXX
Size : 140272 MB
Write Cache : Enabled (write-back)
FRU : None
S.M.A.R.T. : No
S.M.A.R.T. warnings : 0
Power State : Unknown
Supported Power States : Full rpm
Device #1
Device is a Hard drive
State : Online
Supported : Yes
Transfer Speed : SAS 3.0 Gb/s
Reported Channel,Device(T:L) : 0,1(1:0)
Reported Location : Enclosure 0, Slot 1
Reported ESD(T:L) : 2,0(0:0)
Vendor : FUJITSU
Model : MBA3147RC
Firmware : 0103
Serial number : BJA0PAXXXXXX
World-wide name : 500000E115XXXXXX
Size : 140272 MB
Write Cache : Enabled (write-back)
FRU : None
S.M.A.R.T. : No
S.M.A.R.T. warnings : 0
Power State : Unknown
Supported Power States : Full rpm
Device #2
Device is a Hard drive
State : Online
Supported : Yes
Transfer Speed : SAS 3.0 Gb/s
Reported Channel,Device(T:L) : 0,2(2:0)
Reported Location : Enclosure 0, Slot 2
Reported ESD(T:L) : 2,0(0:0)
Vendor : FUJITSU
Model : MBA3147RC
Firmware : 0103
Serial number : BJA0PAXXXXXX
World-wide name : 500000E115XXXXXX
Size : 140272 MB
Write Cache : Enabled (write-back)
FRU : None
S.M.A.R.T. : No
S.M.A.R.T. warnings : 0
Power State : Unknown
Supported Power States : Full rpm
Device #3
Device is a Hard drive
State : Online
Supported : Yes
Transfer Speed : SAS 3.0 Gb/s
Reported Channel,Device(T:L) : 0,3(3:0)
Reported Location : Enclosure 0, Slot 3
Reported ESD(T:L) : 2,0(0:0)
Vendor : FUJITSU
Model : MBA3147RC
Firmware : 0103
Serial number : BJA0PAXXXXXX
World-wide name : 500000E115XXXXXX
Size : 140272 MB
Write Cache : Enabled (write-back)
FRU : None
S.M.A.R.T. : No
S.M.A.R.T. warnings : 0
Power State : Unknown
Supported Power States : Full rpm
Device #4
Device is an Enclosure services device
Reported Channel,Device(T:L) : 2,0(0:0)
Enclosure ID : 0
Type : SES2
Vendor : ADAPTEC
Model : Virtual SGPIO
Firmware : 0001
Status of Enclosure services device