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ESXi 5: Direct IO assigned: Bios update safe?

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
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So here's the deal.

I need to update the bios on a storage controller I have installed in my ESXi 5.1 box..

The box supports IOMMU, and I have the storage controller forwarded to the guest using Direct Path I/O.

Is it safe to attempt to flash the bios of the controller from within the guest OS?

Thanks,
Matt
 
Hmmm, no idea. Sounds risky though. If something spazzes, you end up with a brick? Boot the host from a usb stick to flash it?
 
I've done this several times with my HBA (M1015 / LSI 9221-8i) and the solaris sas2flash utility from LSI.
This is from within my napp-it NAS (Solaris-Express 11 where the HBA is passed to).
...using ESXi5.0 though.
 
Personal Preference is to do it on the card natively i have seen where it goes wrong and when u reboot there is no more card...

i guess it depends on how lucky you feel. Personal pref is to boot the host to dos disk and firmware update. no point of adding additional complexity and assuming that its going to work perfectly.

Your IO card maybe passed through however when u fire up the VM the bios/firmware isn't visible in the VM it happens when you boot the actual physical box.

Thats just my $.02
 
...yes...there is one more thing....for my M1015 / LSI HBA, in order for the flash to become effective, you need to reboot the host, not just the VM....not a problem imposed by virtualization...you need to reboot even when flashing on bare metal

...so what you gain when flashing from inside the VM is limited.
 
Eek. I'd flash native. That'd scare me. Too many low level things happening there that may not be passed through just right.
 
hominidae said:
...yes...there is one more thing....for my M1015 / LSI HBA, in order for the flash to become effective, you need to reboot the host, not just the VM....not a problem imposed by virtualization...you need to reboot even when flashing on bare metal

...so what you gain when flashing from inside the VM is limited.
Click to expand...

I'd assume this has to do with the HBA needing to be power-cycled or somesuch?
 
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