Help with SATA Controller Passthrough from ESXi 6.7 to FreeNAS

[AVSION]

Hi Guys, i have a problem cant passthrough AHCI Controllers, i have X10SRI -F with 8 x HGST 4T one intel ssd run ESXi (see all my system below). in the bios total i have two groups SATA and eSATA which i can see that are showing plugged in, in the ESXi i have two Wellsburg AHCI Controllers greyed out which i assume are my bios SATA groups. both groups where already enabled before i installed the ESXi 6.7 and FreeNAS 11.2 BETA2 VM. in the ESXi CLI passthrou.map i added the AHCI IDs and rebooted, but it's not working still greyed out. is there any workaround to fix it for now with my current hardware as its my production machine, sorry i couldn't wait :) . i plan to get better SSD, NICs and if necessary PCI cards for the HDD soon.

also attached screenshots

Thank you in advance

Code:

# CUSTOMS

# Intel Wellsburg AHCI Controller

8086 8d02 d3d0 false

8086 8d62 d3d0 false

	 

# /CUSTOMS

										 

# Intel 82579LM Gig NIC can be reset with d3d0

8086  1502  d3d0	 default				  

# Intel 82598 10Gig cards can be reset with d3d0

8086  10b6  d3d0	 default

8086  10c6  d3d0	 default

8086  10c7  d3d0	 default

8086  10c8  d3d0	 default

8086  10dd  d3d0	 default							

# Broadcom 57710/57711/57712 10Gig cards are not shareable

14e4  164e  default  false

14e4  164f  default  false

14e4  1650  default  false

14e4  1662  link	 false		  

# Qlogic 8Gb FC card can not be shared

1077  2532  default  false		

# LSILogic 1068 based SAS controllers

1000  0056  d3d0	 default

1000  0058  d3d0	 default

# NVIDIA				

10de  ffff  bridge   false

FreeNAS Shows


[root@freenas ~]# camcontrol devlis
<VMware Virtual disk 2.0> at scbus2 target 0 lun 0 (pass0,da0)
<SanDisk Cruzer Glide 1.00> at scbus4 target 0 lun 0 (pass1,da1)


 

[Jessep]

From previous reading editing passthrough mapping isn't working on ESXI 6.7. It does work on 6.5 which is what I'm using with the same board.

 

[AVSION]

Thanks, what 6.5 version do you use, will 6.5 U2 will work with this board?

 

[Jessep]

I'm using: 6.5.0 Update 1 (Build 7967591)
I would guess any version of 6.5 would still use the passthrough file.

I worked off this thread:
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/esxi-6-0-passthrough-onboard-sata.8902/

This post:

Code:

I'm not positive on the C610 chipset, but, as ehfortin mentioned in his thread, you'll need to add the Wellsburg controller to /etc/vmware/passthru.map.

You'll need the vendor and device id. Run lspci at the ESXi command line. Look for the line pertaining to your mass storage controller. It will likely be "0000:00:XX.X Mass Storage Controller: Intel Corporation Wellsburg AHCI Controller".

Make a note of the hex prefix (0000:00:XX.X) and then run 'lspci -n'.

Find the line corresponding to the prefix, it'll look something like '0000:00:1f.2 Class 0106: 8086:8d62 [vmhba2]'. That last part, "8086:8d62" in this case, are the vendor and device id.

Then add them to your passthru.map file like so:

# INTEL Wellsburg AHCI
8086 8d62 d3d0 false

This post states it's not working in 6.7:

Code:

Are you using ESXi 6.5 and 6.7? It seems that editing passthru.map is not working anymore with 6.7, I have the same issue with an Intel Lynx AHCI controller that was working fine with 6.5.

 

[AVSION]

Yes i was following this post thank you, i had some progress yesterday, i can confirm now it is working on ESXi 6.5 U2 with X10SRi-F, by updating the Passthrough map and adding the device ID i was able to passthrough both Intel Wellsburg AHCI controllers. however i have a new issue after passthrough reboot, booting freezes for few minutes, when loging in, the one datastore (SSD ESXi) disappeared, its still there but not available any more, otherwise i wasn't able to boot at all. i think i know why but not sure how to fix it. as explain in my OP i have two SATA groups with total 10 inputs in the BIOS, group 1 have 4 inputs with 4 HDDs populated from the pool and the second have 6 inputs with 4 HDDs populated from the same pool, one SSD that i install the ESXi and one DVD. the SSD was added as a bare bone device in the initial ESXi installation but once i passthrough the second AHCI to the ESXi, he owned it. i'm new to ESXi so still learning is this correct and how do i fix it? or the way i set it initially is wrong but the SSD has to be on one of the SATA groups anyway. one more note currently in my bare bone setup, i use 2 16G USBs (mirror) to boot from FreeNAS and in the BIOS i set it up as DUAL boot modes (UEFI and LEGACY), do i still leave it as DUAL right? and how do i pass it through to ESXi? and when setting up freenas how do i import my current configuration, pool, USBs mirrors etc?

sorry lots of unclear things involve in this process.

Thank you

 

[Jessep]

Putting both controllers in the passthrough mapping file makes them available for passthrough, but doesn't pass them through.

If you do pass through both controllers to the FreeNAS VM (4 port and 6 port) all devices on those controllers will be IN the FreeNAS VM and not available to ESXi.

On my setup I passed through the 6 port controller, with 6 drives connected. I left the 4 port controller controlled by ESXi with my ESXi boot SSD and ESXi datastores. I created the FreeNAS VM on one of those ESXi SSD datastores.

So in the FreeNAS VM it thinks it has a boot drive (32GB) which is actually a VMDK on a ESXi datastore. In the FreeNAS VM it sees the 6 port SATA controller I passed in and all drives on that controller.

If you are unfamiliar with how VMWare works I'm not sure that building an AIO with FreeNAS as a VM is the best choice for you. You WILL be risking your data if you do something wrong. This type of setup isn't for the newbie to VMWare/FreeNAS technologies.