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This guide uses an LSI 9211-8i/LSI 9311-8i controller; presented via DirectPath I/O on ESXi 5.5/6.5. The controller was flashed to IT-firmware before using it on this system.
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To start, log on to your VSphere Server; or connect via the VMware VI-Client to your ESXi server. Navigate to the Configuration Page; and select PCI Devices. Add your controller.
Note: a reboot is required after this step
After the reboot; it's time to configure your VM. We'll create a custom VM using the following settings:
Solaris 11 - Other 64-bitbits
Add plenty of RAM. In my case - I used 8GB
Root disk on a local datastore
LSI Logic Parallel controller (pvscsi is working fine, need ignore VMware message about issue with boot drives)
40GB disk
vmxnet3 network adapterÂ
The reason for using the vmxnet3 adaptor is twofold:
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$ sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools
$ sudo svcadm enable open-vm-tools |
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Optimization: NTPD
To synchronize the time, you can enable this feature in the vm settings on vmware.
Or configure the ntp service on vm.
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$ sudo apt install ntp
$ sudo svcadm enable ntp
$ sudo ntpdate 0.debian.pool.ntp.org
$ sudo svcadm clear ntp
$ #check ntp
$ ntpq -p |
Optimization: Controller Load Balancing
Next step is optimising the kernel drivers for the LSI 9211-8i card I'm using. This next step greatly optimises performance for SAS drives. As root; open the following file:
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load-balance="logical-block"; |
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Optimization: vmxnet3 driver - jumbo frames
In this particular setup - I'm using jumbo frames to improve large I/O performance.
A couple of modifications are needed to successfully cope with this. Namely disabling Large Segment Offload (LSO) and tuning the send and receive buffers; which are too small for 10gbit/Jumbo Frames. Open an editor to your likes (in the example - we're using vi):
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