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Guide Monitoring RAID-Controller VMware ESXi

Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 General 2 Procedure / preparations 2.1 Enabling SSH access 2.2 Installing the CIM provider 2.3 Verifying the CIM provider 3 Reading the device status

General

VMware ESXi uses so-called CIM providers (Common Information Model) for monitoring of hardware. These providers read the hardware state of a device and deliver these data back to the CIM broker. This information in turn can be read by the vSphere Client for instance.

If you have a server with hardware RAID ad VMware support at EUserv you are able to monitor the status of the hardware RAID. In the following guide we will show you how to install the CIM provider for the RAID controller and how to monitor the device status.

Procedure / preparations

In order to install the CIM provider the SSH access has to be enabled on the ESXi host first. This will be done via the vSphere Client. After this the CIM provider for the RAID controller has to be retrieved and installed.

Finally, the ESXi host has to be rebooted. The device information can then be reviewed in the vSphere Client.

For the following steps VMware's vSphere Client is required. You can find additional hints about installation of the client here: Guide_VMware_ESXi

Enabling SSH access

In order to enable the SSH server on the ESXi host, start the vSphere Client first. Select your host from the upper left side and click Software -> Security Profile in the middle window:

Under the section Services select Properties from the upper right:

Select SSH from the list of available services, then click Options. Select Start and stop with host and click Start. Confirm this dialogue with OK:

Installing the CIM provider

After the SSH server has been started, connect to the server with an SSH client. The CIM provider will be installed using the tool esxcli which is included in ESXi by default. The CIM provider for the LSI MegaRAID controller is already available as *.vib file from the EUserv mirror. dem EUserv-Mirror vor.

The installation can be done with the following command:

esxcli software vib install -v http://mirror.euserv.net/misc/vmware-esx-provider-lsiprovider.vib

You should see the following output:

Installation Result
   Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
   Reboot Required: true
   VIBs Installed: LSI_bootbank_lsiprovider_500.04.V0.56-0005
   VIBs Removed: 
   VIBs Skipped: 

In order for the changes to become effective you need to reboot the ESXi host. This can either be done using the reboot command or via the vSphere Client.

Verifying the CIM provider

After the reboot log in via SSH again and execute the following command:

esxcli software vib list

You wil now see a list of all installed software and driver packages. The CIM for the LSI MegaRAID controller should be registered as follows:

Name                           Version                               Vendor    Acceptance Level    Install Date
-----------------------------  ------------------------------------  --------  ------------------  ------------
lsiprovider                    500.04.V0.56-0005                     LSI       VMwareAccepted      2015-09-15  
...

Reading the device status

After the successful installation of the CIM klick on System Health in the Hardware section. You will now see a listing of the controller status, the connected hard disks and the logical volumes as well as the port status. The Status column displays the current health state (Normal or Alert):