Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[erik quanstrom]

> Somehow my laptop gets by using 32-bit IP addresses regardless of
> whether it's on my home Ethernet, a dialup connection (rare these
> days in the U.S., still sometimes useful overseas), or on a
> wireless LAN.
>
> My landline phone and my cellular phone both use base-10 digits,
> and even the same number of digits!
>
>
> Hey, I know, let's name all disks by Ethernet MAC addresses :-)

if we did that, then we would never be able to have more
than one connection to the disk.  there needs to be a distinction
between the disks network address and the disk address if one
wishes to support multipathing for redundency or increased
bandwidth.

the sas wwn (also used in ata these days, btw) uniquely identifies
a target.  it's 8 bytes.  and looks for all the world like a mac address
with a 2-byte prefix (see contrib/quanstro oui).  one could identify
all scsi (modern) scsi drives by wwn and bury the topology inside
the scsi drivers.  that's typically what sas drives do.

this is all a bit convoluted.  aoe otoh has the advantage that
a lun's address is shelf.slot.  and the driver discovers mac addresses
on which the target is visable.  modulo driver bugs, one can
replug the network while doing io to a target and it just works.
one naturally gets multipathing by spreading out requests among
the mac addresses associated with a target.

- erik

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[lucio]

>> if this is the case, it seems simple enough to fix.  can anyone confirm?
> 
> Yes, I saw that problem as well.

Too long ago, I didn't keep notes.  But it's certainly possible.

++L

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[lucio]

> Anyway, I've been running Plan 9 servers on ESX 3.5 for a year or so.
> It is ESX 3.5.0, 153875, not ESXi though.

I've been running on ESXi for about as long.  But a CPU server, not a
workstation.

++L

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[erik quanstrom]

> interesting.  i just tried it and it works.  the admin tool
> (lab manager) wont allow the cd drive to be removed
> but assigning a .iso to it works as well.
>
> i wonder why?

probablly a problem with sdata.c.

- erik

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[YAMANASHI Takeshi]

> but assigning a .iso to it works as well.

I don't know if this is related to the empty CD-ROM drive problem or not,
but ESX3.5 FDD is painfuly slow.  It takes a long time for a cpu
server to boot from floppy.
The booting process looked almost hanged up.
-- 


On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Skip Tavakkolian <9nut@9netics.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 10:30 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>>>> Do you have the CD-ROM drive attached to the VM while you boot it?
>>>>
>>>> I remember Plan 9 didn't start when you have an empty CD-ROM drive
>>>> connected to the VM on ESX 3.5.  So I removed the CD-ROM drive from VM's
>>>
>>> if this is the case, it seems simple enough to fix.  can anyone confirm?
>>
>> Yes, I saw that problem as well.
>>
>> ron
>
> interesting.  i just tried it and it works.  the admin tool
> (lab manager) wont allow the cd drive to be removed
> but assigning a .iso to it works as well.
>
> i wonder why?
>
>
>



-- 
YAMANASHI Takeshi

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[Skip Tavakkolian]

> On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 10:30 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>>> Do you have the CD-ROM drive attached to the VM while you boot it?
>>>
>>> I remember Plan 9 didn't start when you have an empty CD-ROM drive
>>> connected to the VM on ESX 3.5.  So I removed the CD-ROM drive from VM's
>>
>> if this is the case, it seems simple enough to fix.  can anyone confirm?
>
> Yes, I saw that problem as well.
>
> ron

interesting.  i just tried it and it works.  the admin tool
(lab manager) wont allow the cd drive to be removed
but assigning a .iso to it works as well.

i wonder why?

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[ron minnich]

On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 10:30 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>> Do you have the CD-ROM drive attached to the VM while you boot it?
>>
>> I remember Plan 9 didn't start when you have an empty CD-ROM drive
>> connected to the VM on ESX 3.5.  So I removed the CD-ROM drive from VM's
>
> if this is the case, it seems simple enough to fix.  can anyone confirm?

Yes, I saw that problem as well.

ron

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[erik quanstrom]

> Do you have the CD-ROM drive attached to the VM while you boot it?
>
> I remember Plan 9 didn't start when you have an empty CD-ROM drive
> connected to the VM on ESX 3.5.  So I removed the CD-ROM drive from VM's

if this is the case, it seems simple enough to fix.  can anyone confirm?

- erik

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[YAMANASHI Takeshi]

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 1:35 AM, Skip Tavakkolian <9nut@9netics.com> wrote:
> the installation completed but it is unable to get past fossil
> startup;

Do you have the CD-ROM drive attached to the VM while you boot it?

I remember Plan 9 didn't start when you have an empty CD-ROM drive
connected to the VM on ESX 3.5.  So I removed the CD-ROM drive from VM's
configuration after having installed Plan 9 into the BusLogic SCSI drive.

Anyway, I've been running Plan 9 servers on ESX 3.5 for a year or so.
It is ESX 3.5.0, 153875, not ESXi though.


-- 
On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 1:35 AM, Skip Tavakkolian <9nut@9netics.com> wrote:
>> Plan 9 does not work with either of the SCSI controllers in ESX(i) 3.5
>> or less. Plan 9 does run on IDE drives just fine in ESX(i) 4. Plan 9
>> panicks if you give it more than 2 CPUs on any of them. If you have
>> any questions about getting Plan 9 to run in ESX(i) 4, let me know;
>> I've done it. But you won't get it running in <4 without moar drivers.
>>
>> --dho
>
> the installation completed but it is unable to get past fossil
> startup; so you're correct.  unfortunately this is 3.5 installation
> that i have no control over.
>
> i think i'll switch my focus to playing with miller-ware.
>
>
>



-- 
YAMANASHI Takeshi

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[Skip Tavakkolian]

> Plan 9 does not work with either of the SCSI controllers in ESX(i) 3.5
> or less. Plan 9 does run on IDE drives just fine in ESX(i) 4. Plan 9
> panicks if you give it more than 2 CPUs on any of them. If you have
> any questions about getting Plan 9 to run in ESX(i) 4, let me know;
> I've done it. But you won't get it running in <4 without moar drivers.
>
> --dho

the installation completed but it is unable to get past fossil
startup; so you're correct.  unfortunately this is 3.5 installation
that i have no control over.

i think i'll switch my focus to playing with miller-ware.

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[Skip Tavakkolian]

> Which version of ESX are you using?   ESX 3.5 provides two types of
> SCSI controllers.
> One is BusLogic and the other is LSI Logic which is the default.  If
> you change the
> controller type to BusLogic, Plan 9 should install on ESX without problems.

yes, switching to BusLogic did the trick. thanks.

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[Devon H. O'Dell]

Plan 9 does not work with either of the SCSI controllers in ESX(i) 3.5
or less. Plan 9 does run on IDE drives just fine in ESX(i) 4. Plan 9
panicks if you give it more than 2 CPUs on any of them. If you have
any questions about getting Plan 9 to run in ESX(i) 4, let me know;
I've done it. But you won't get it running in <4 without moar drivers.

--dho

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[Dave Eckhardt]

> the address of a scsi device will have depends on the protocol
> used for disk access.

Somehow my laptop gets by using 32-bit IP addresses regardless of
whether it's on my home Ethernet, a dialup connection (rare these
days in the U.S., still sometimes useful overseas), or on a
wireless LAN.

My landline phone and my cellular phone both use base-10 digits,
and even the same number of digits!

Hey, I know, let's name all disks by Ethernet MAC addresses :-)

Dave Eckhardt

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[YAMANASHI Takeshi]

Hi,

>> vmware esx only supports scsi virtual drives.

Which version of ESX are you using?   ESX 3.5 provides two types of
SCSI controllers.
One is BusLogic and the other is LSI Logic which is the default.  If
you change the
controller type to BusLogic, Plan 9 should install on ESX without problems.

> http://www.........../pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_config_max.pdf
>
> IDE controllers per virtual machine: 1
> IDE devices per virtual machine : 4

ESX provides IDE controllers to its vm, but those are only for FDDS and CD-ROM
I suppose.


On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 12:54 PM,  <6o205zd02@sneakemail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-10-01 at 16:30 -0700, Skip Tavakkolian 9nut-at-9netics.com
> |9fans| wrote:
>> vmware esx only supports scsi virtual drives.
>
> What makes you think that?  According to the first page of
> http://www.........../pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_config_max.pdf
>
> IDE controllers per virtual machine: 1
> IDE devices per virtual machine : 4
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
YAMANASHI Takeshi

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[erik quanstrom]

> Run in fear.
>
> Despite having a number which is just a wee bit higher than the
> things supported by the existing Plan 9 NCR/LSI SCSI driver,
> this is an utterly different beast, based on LSI's "Fusion"
> architecture, which in theory simplifies things vastly for the
> host over the old sequencer/script architecture, but all of the
> simplification is balanced out by vast complexity additions in
> other areas (addressing devices in terms of target and LUN is
> obsolete, so there are two or three other ways that devices can
> identify themselves, and a host is supposed to set up a mapping
> from long identifiers to short ones for, and for some reason I
> didn't get on first reading the host is supposed to use the same
> mapping across reboots).

regardless of what one things of the fusion architecture,
most of these complications are direct results about how
modern scsi works; any modern scsi driver will have the
same issues.  the address of a scsi device will have depends
on the protocol used for disk access.  sas for example
uses "sas addresses" aka a wwn.  if you avoid dealing with
expanders, sas simplifies quite a bit.  sdorion (contrib
quanstro/sd) is a "combined mode" driver.  combined mode
means that it is able to talk to either sata or sas hardware.

- erik

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[Dave Eckhardt]

> 	1000/0030 LSI53C1020/1030 PCI-X to Ultra320 SCSI Controller

Run in fear.

Despite having a number which is just a wee bit higher than the
things supported by the existing Plan 9 NCR/LSI SCSI driver,
this is an utterly different beast, based on LSI's "Fusion"
architecture, which in theory simplifies things vastly for the
host over the old sequencer/script architecture, but all of the
simplification is balanced out by vast complexity additions in
other areas (addressing devices in terms of target and LUN is
obsolete, so there are two or three other ways that devices can
identify themselves, and a host is supposed to set up a mapping
from long identifiers to short ones for, and for some reason I
didn't get on first reading the host is supposed to use the same
mapping across reboots).

Also, I think that in addition to talking to disks over this
SCSI adaptor, you can also send network packets.

Dave Eckhardt

Re: [9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[6o205zd02]

On Thu, 2009-10-01 at 16:30 -0700, Skip Tavakkolian 9nut-at-9netics.com
|9fans| wrote:
> vmware esx only supports scsi virtual drives.

What makes you think that?  According to the first page of
http://www.........../pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_config_max.pdf

IDE controllers per virtual machine: 1
IDE devices per virtual machine : 4

[9fans] plan9 on vmware esx

[Skip Tavakkolian]

vmware esx only supports scsi virtual drives. it appears to be:

	1000/0030 LSI53C1020/1030 PCI-X to Ultra320 SCSI Controller

so a new kernel with scsi support and a new cd image should fix it;
anything else to consider?

fyi, here's the pci output:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddxpv6x5_34dgrn4wgz