Allocating more than 6GB RAM w/ESXi = black screen

Jim G

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 2, 2011
Messages
221
Hey all;

Running ESXi 5.0 and trying to allocate more RAM to my OpenIndiana VM but whenever I allocate more than 6GB RAM the VM refuses to boot with no error message, just hangs as soon as it powers on with a black screen. I can't ping or SSH in so it doesn't appear to be starting in the background. I have plenty of RAM to spare (got about 12GB free after the other VMs) and I'm finding the lack of error message puzzling - any ideas?
 
Two - is it worth experimenting with that setting to see if it makes a difference?
 
Does it really need 6GB (shouldn't black screen, but it's worth a question).

Check /var/log/vmkernel.log, and the vmware.log file in the VM directory - what are they saying right when you start the VM up?
 
Does it really need 6GB (shouldn't black screen, but it's worth a question).

Check /var/log/vmkernel.log, and the vmware.log file in the VM directory - what are they saying right when you start the VM up?

It's running a couple of ZFS folders with dedupe on and I'm trying to get the most speed out of it that I can - and from what I've read allocating as much RAM as I can get away with should help that. I'll get around to adding a L2ARC in the near future.

Hm. I can view log files just fine when I only have 6GB RAM allocated but when I boot up with more all I get is "-sh: cannot fork" when I enter any command whilst connected to ESXi via SSH, thus preventing me from seeing any new logs. I assume I'm running the box out of resources somehow, despite only having two VMs running - the other of which has only 512MB RAM max allocated?
 
Problem fixed by reinstalling ESXi. NFC what was going on there but all of the weird little things that were going wrong (VMs occasionally not starting with no useful error messages) are now gone. Looks like something had gone awry with the install.
 
weird. Really wish I could have seen the host logs....

I reinstalled to a different device; I'll have a look and see if I can't post up the logs from the old install for you later today if you like.
 
OK! Found the time to look at the logs but I can't seem to see the ESXi partition on the old datastore from the new one - I will boot into it when I get time over the next few days and get them then unless someone knows a way of seeing the other partition :)
 
Yeah..6GB of RAM should be fine...sitting here waiting on some 24GB of RAM VMs to vMotion right now at a customer site...lalalala....
 
Back
Top