ESXi 8.0 on HPE Proliant DL360p Gen8

 ESXi, HPE, VMware, vSphere  12 Responses »
Jul 242023
 
Picture of an DL360p Gen8 1U Rack Server with IO-PEX40152 Installed

A few months ago, you may have seen my post detailing my experience with ESXi 7.0 on HP Proliant DL360p Gen8 servers. I now have an update as I have successfully loaded ESXi 8.0 on HPE Proliant DL360p Gen8 servers, and want to share my experience.

It wasn’t as eventful as one would have expected, but I wanted to share what’s required, what works, and stability observations.

Please note, this is NOT supported and NOT recommended for production environments. Use the information at your own risk.

A special thank you goes out to William Lam and his post on Homelab considerations for vSphere 8, which provided me with the boot parameter required to allow legacy CPUs.

ESXi on the DL360p Gen8

With the release of vSphere 8.0 Update 1, and all the new features and functionality that come with the vSphere 8 release as a whole, I decided it was time to attempt to update my homelab.

In my setup, I have the following:

  • 2 x HPE Proliant DL360p Gen8 Servers
    • Dual Intel Xeon E5-2660v2 Processors in each server
    • USB and/or SD for booting ESXi
    • No other internal storage
    • NVIDIA A2 vGPU (for use with VMware Horizon)
  • External SAN iSCSI Storage

Since I have 2 servers, I decided to do a fresh install using the generic installer, and then use the HPE addon to install all the HPE addons, drivers, and software. I would perform these steps on one server at a time, continuing to the next if all went well.

I went ahead and documented the configuration of my servers beforehand, and had already had upgraded my VMware vCenter vCSA appliance from 7U3 to 8U1. Note, that you should always upgrade your vCenter Server first, and then your ESXi hosts.

To my surprise the install went very smooth (after enabling legacy CPUs in the installer) on one of the hosts, and after a few days with no stability issues, I then proceeded and upgraded the 2nd host.

I’ve been running with 100% for 25+ days without any issues.

The process – Installing ESXi 8.0

I used the following steps to install VMware vSphere ESXi 8 on my HP Proliant Gen8 Server:

  1. Download the Generic ESXi installer from VMware directly.
    1. Link: Download VMware vSphere
  2. Download the “HPE Custom Addon for ESXi 8.1”.
    1. Link: HPE Custom Addon for ESXi 8.0 U1 June 2023
    2. Other versions of the Addon are here: HPE Customized ESXi Image.
  3. Boot server with Generic ESXi installer media (CD or ISO)
    • IMPORTANT: Press “Shift + o” (Shift key, and letter “o”) to interrupt the ESXi boot loader, and add “AllowLegacyCPU=true” to the kernel boot parameters.
  4. Continue to install ESXi as normal.
    • You may see warnings about using a legacy CPU, you can ignore these.
  5. Complete initial configuration of ESXi host
  6. Mount NFS or iSCSI datastore.
  7. Copy HPE Custom Addon for ESXi zip file to datastore.
  8. Enable SSH on host (or use console).
  9. Place host in to maintenance mode.
  10. Run “esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore-name/folder-name/HPE-801.0.0.11.3.1.1-Jun2023-Addon-depot.zip” from the command line.
  11. The install will run and complete successfully.
  12. Restart your server as needed, you’ll now notice that not only were HPE drivers installed, but also agents like the Agentless management agent, and iLO integrations.

After that, everything was good to go… Here you can see version information from one of the ESXi hosts:

ESXi 8 on HPE Proliant DL360p Gen8
VMware ESXi version 8.0.1 Build 21813344 on HPE Proliant DL360p Gen8 Server

What works, and what doesn’t

I was surprised to see that everything works, including the P420i embedded RAID controller. Please note that I am not using the RAID controller, so I have not performed extensive testing on it.

HPE P420i RAID Controller with VMware vSphere ESXi 8
HPE P420i RAID Controller with VMware vSphere ESXi 8

All Hardware health information is present, and ESXi is functioning as one would expect if running a supported version on the platform.

Additional Information

Note that with vSphere 8, VMware is deprecating vLCM baselines. Your focus should be to update your ESXi instances using cluster image based update images. You can incorporate vendor add-ons and components to create a customized image for deployment.

HPE Nimble and HPE Alletra 6000 SAN IP Zoning

 HPE, HPE Alletra, HPE Nimble  No Responses »
Mar 122023
 

Are you running an HPE Nimble or HPE Alletra 6000 SAN in your VMware environment with iSCSI? A commonly overlooked component of the solution architecture and configuration when using these SAN’s is HPE Nimble and HPE Alletra 6000 SAN IP Zoning with an ISL (Inter-Switch Link).

When it comes to implementing these SANs, it’s all about data availability, performance, optimizations, and making sure it’s done properly.

I want to share with you some information, as I feel this important and required configuration consideration is often ignored, with many IT professionals not being aware it exists.

HPE Alletra 6000
HPE Alletra 6000 SAN

I recently had a customer that purchased and deployed two HPE Alletra 6010 SANs for their VMware environment, where I was contracted to implement these SANs. Even though the customer purchased HPE Technical Installation and Startup Services, the HPE installer was not aware of IP Address Zoning and it’s purpose, advising us to disable it.

I actually had to advise the technician that numerous HPE technical documents recommended to enable and configure it when you have an ISL. He then researched it, and confirmed we should have it enabled and configured.

IP Address Zoning

When you have SAN switches that include an ISL (inter-switch link) that are connected to an HPE Nimble or HPE Alletra SAN, it’s preferred not to have traffic go across that interlink, as it creates additional hops for packets, as well as increases latency.

However, in the event of a switch, NIC, and/or path failure, we do want to have the interlink available to facilitate data access and be available when required.

Using NCM (Nimble Connection Manager) and SCM (Storage Connection Manager) on your VMware ESXi hosts, the HPE Nimble and HPE Alletra storage solution can intelligently choose when to use the interlink depending on paths available, and the current health of SAN connectivity. It does this through IP Address Zones.

You must have the NCM or SCM plugin installed on your ESXi hosts to be able to use IP Address Zones, and use the HPE Nimble Storage path selection policy (NIMBLE_PSP_DIRECTED).

Implementing IP Address Zones

To implement this, you’ll need to assign an IP Zone to each of your switches. Please see below for a table from HPE Alletra documentation:

HPE Nimble and HPE Alletra SAN IP Address Zone Types for ISL configuration
HPE IP Address Zone Types for ISL Configuration

You can choose to either bisect the subnet, or use a method of dedicating even numbered IPs to one switch/zone, and dedicating odd numbered IPs to the other switch/zone.

This allows you to zone each switch, and keep traffic in the zone avoiding use of the interlink which would cause additional hops and latency. You’ll need to configure on the storage array the Zone Type you selected.

In the event of a failure, the interlink will be available for non-optimized path access to ensure continued data access.

HPE Simplivity Upgrade Manager – Access Denied, Incorrect Credentials

 HPE, HPE Simplivity, vCenter vCSA, VMware  No Responses »
Jan 112023
 
HPE Simplivity Logo

When attempting to log in to your VMware vCenter using the HPE Simplivity Upgrade Manager to perform an upgrade on your Simplivity Infrastructure, the login may fail with Access Denied, Incorrect Credentials, or Incorrect Username and Password.

Despite confirming that the credentials are correct (logging in to the vCenter UI, as well as the vCSA console via SSH), the HPE Simplivity Upgrade Manager will continue to fail on connection.

The Problem

During the login process, the HPE Simplivity Upgrade Manager will not only check the credentials and attempt to logon to the vCenter server, but it will also attempt to pull and validate the SSL certificates (whether trusted or not) on the vCenter server.

During the typical login process, after entering the credentials and clicking “Connect”, the user will be prompted with the SSL certificate information asking to approve the connection. In this specific circumstance the SSL window is not presented.

HPE Simplivity Upgrade Manager Login Failed

Because of the SSL check not being presented, I thought there may have been a chance with trusting the connection, and possibly HPE Simplivity wasn’t able to show the error specific to the SSL check failing.

vCenter Download Trusted Root CA Certificates

When clicking on this, I was presented with an HTTP 404 error (File not found), meaning the certficiates weren’t present, which I felt may be contributing or causing this problem.

The Solution

After doing a quick search, I was able to find a VMware KB 89325 addressing the issue of being Unable to download Trusted Root Certificates for VCSA because it shows 0kb file.

Logging in to the vCSA appliance, I was able to determine that the appliance was missing the certificate symlink to allow the certificate download by running this command:

ls -ltra /etc/vmware-vpx/docRoot

Inside of the directory listing, there was no symlink for certs, which should point to “/var/lib/vmware-vpx/docRoot/certs”.

I went ahead and created the symlink using the following command:

ln -sfn /var/lib/vmware-vpx/docRoot/certs /etc/vmware-vpx/docRoot/certs

When using the “ls -ltra /etc/vmware-vpx/docRoot” command from above, I was now able to verify that the symlink existed:

vCenter DocRoot showing “certs” symbolic link

After creating the symlink, I was able to download the Trusted Root CA zip file (you don’t need to do anything with this file as the download was just a test).

I now went back to the Upgrade Manager to attempt to login, and it was successful.

ESXi 7.0 on HP Proliant DL360p Gen8

 ESXi, HPE, VMware  22 Responses »
Sep 042022
 

With VMware ESXi 6.5 and 6.7 going End of Life on October 15th, 2022, many of you are looking for options to update hosts in your homelab, especially in my case putting ESXi 7.0 on HP Proliant DL360p Gen8 servers.

As far as support goes, HPE last provided a custom installer for ESXi for versions 6.5 U3 which was released December of 2019. This was the “last Pre-Gen9 custom image” released, as ESXi 7.0 on the DL360p Gen8 is totally unsupported.

Update: Check out my post covering ESXi 8.0 on HPE Proliant DL360p Gen8 servers!

ESXi 6.7 or higher on the Gen8 Servers

The jump from 6.5 to 6.7 was a little easier, as you could use the 6.5 custom installer, and then upgrade to 6.7. For the most part, as long as the hardware itself was supported, you were in pretty good shape.

Additionally, with the HPE vibsdepot loaded in to VMware Update Manager (now known as Lifecycle Manager), you could also keep all the HPE drivers and agents up to date.

ESXi 7.0 on the Gen8 Servers

Some were lucky enough to upgrade their current installs to 7 with no or limited problems, however the general consensus online was to expect problems. There were some major driver changes, which I think at one point led to an advisory to perform a fresh install, even if you had a fully supported configuration with newer generation servers such as the Proliant Gen9 and Gen10 servers, when upgrading from older versions.

In my setup, I have the following:

  • 2 x HPE Proliant DL360p Gen8 Servers
    • Dual Intel Xeon E5-2660v2 Processors in each server
    • USB and/or SD for booting ESXi
    • No other internal storage
  • External SAN iSCSI Storage

Concerns and Considerations

My main concern is to not only have a stable and functioning ESXi 7 instance, but I also, if possible would like to have the HPE drivers, agents, and integrations with iLO.

You must consider that while this is completely unsupported, you do need to make sure that the components of your current configuration are supported, such as the processor and PCIe cards, even if the server as a whole is not supported.

Make sure you reference your hardware on the VMware Compatibility Guide (HCL).

In my case, my processors were supported, however my RAID controller was not. So theoretically, since I’m not using my RAID controllers, I should be fine.

The process – Installing ESXi 7.0

I was able to install ESXi 7.0 on my HPE Proliant Gen8 servers, by performing the following steps.

  1. Download the Generic ESXi installer from VMware directly.
    1. Link: Download VMware vSphere
  2. Download the “HPE Custom Addon for ESXi 7.0”.
    1. Link: HPE Custom Addon for ESXi 7.0 U3 for July 2022
  3. Boot server, install using the Generic Installer downloaded above.
  4. Mount NFS or iSCSI datastore.
  5. Copy HPE Custom Addon for ESXi zip file to datastore.
  6. Enable SSH on host (or use console).
  7. Place host in to maintenance mode.
  8. Run “esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore-name/folder-name/HPE-703.0.0.10.9.1.5-Jul2022-Addon-depot.zip” from the command line.
  9. The install will run and complete successfully.
  10. Restart your server as needed, you’ll now notice that not only were HPE drivers installed, but also agents like the Agentless management agent, and iLO integrations.

You’ll now have a functioning instance.

HP Proliant DL360p Gen8 running ESXi 7.0

In my case everything was working, except for the “Smart Array P420i” RAID Controller, which I don’t use anyways.

Additionally, if you have a vCenter instance running, make sure that you add the HPE vibsdepot repo to your Lifecycle Manager. After you add the repo, create a baseline, and attach the baseline to the host, go ahead and proceed to scan, stage, and remediate the server which will then further update all the HPE specific drivers and software.

The Tech Journal – Vlog Episode 02

 10ZiG, End User Computing, Exchange Server, HPE, HPE Discover, Starlink, VDI, Vlog, VMware, YouTube  1 Response »
May 142021
 

Welcome to Episode 02 of The Tech Journal Vlog at StephenWagner.com

In this episode

What I’ve done this week

  • 10ZiG Unboxing (10ZiG 4610q and 10ZiG 6110)
  • Thin Client Blogging and Video Creation
  • VDI Work (Instant Clones, NVME Flash Storage Server)

Fun Stuff

  • HPE Discover 2021 – June 22 to June 24 – Register for HPE Discover at https://infl.tv/jtHb
  • Firewall with 163 day uptime and no updates?!?!?
  • Microsoft Exchange Repeated Pending Reboot Issue
  • Microsoft Exchange Security Update KB5001779 (and CU18 to CU20)

Life Update

  • Earned VMware vExpert Status in February!
  • Starlink in Saskatchewan, Alberta (Canada)
    • VDI over Starlink, low latency!!!
    • Use Cases (Oil and Gas Facilities, etc)

Work Update

  • HPE Simplivity Upgrade (w/Identity Store Issues, Mellanox Firmware Issues)

New Blog Posts

Current Projects

  • 10ZiG 4610q Thin Client Content
  • 10ZiG 6110 Thin Client Content
  • VMware Horizon Instant Clones Guides and Content

Don’t forget to like and subscribe!
Leave a comment, feedback, or suggestions!

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