Dear VMware Support,
I have just upgraded my ESXi 5.0 Update 1 to ESXi 5.1.
The host is an HP ProLiant DL360 G7 and the passthrough device is an HP PCI_E SC11Xe HBA (which actually is an LSI 53e1030 PCI-X Fusion MPT Dual Ultra320 SCSI).
I must say that the passthrough device is used to allow a VM to run backups using a SCSI tape and that the system was running fine with ESXi 5.0 Update 1.
After installing ESXi 5.1 I configured a fresh new VM with this PCI passthrough device and started it, but as soon as the VM boots (no OS installed yet) the ESXi host goes to purple screen (see the attached file for complete info):
VMware ESXi 5.1.0 [Releasebuild-799733 x86_64]
PF Exception 14 in world 25718:vmx IP 0x41802c0f095c addr 0x14
...
Code start: 0x4182be00000 VMK uptime 0:05:41:28.716
0x412211d9bcd8:[0x41802c0f095c]PCI_GetExtCapIdx@vmkernel#nover+0x2b stack: 0x412211d9bd38
0x412211d9bd48:[0x41802bebadd2]VMKPCIPassthru_GetPCIInfo@vmkernel#nover+0x335 stack: 0x230001700301
0x412211d9beb8:[0x41802c2a2c51]UW64VMKSyscallUnpackPCIPassthruGetPCIInfo@<None>#<None>+0x28 stack:
0x412211d9bef8:[0x41802c276791]User_LinuxSyscallHandler@<None>#<None>+0x17c stack: 0x41802be4cc70
This error occurs even if there's no device attached to the HBA and no OS on the VM. ESXi 5.1 crashes as soon as I turn on the VM (I suppose it is during the POST).
The server and the HBA have their firmware up to date.
This issue seems to be related to the latest release of ESX 5.1 and it is a regression from ESX 5.0.
Since I can easily reproduce the problem, please let me know you need any other info from my environment.
In the meantime I'll test the same configuration on another HP server (this time a ProLiant DL380 G7).
Thanks in advance
Renato Massone