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[SOLVED] Install on vmware ESXI


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After some hours of hacking I now have fully working ESXi 5.1 virtual machine setup with DS 4.2 (3202).

 

To get PVSCSI and VMXNET3 working a new kernel needs to be compiled. To make matters worse, scsi drives are not supported at all. So some steps need to be done:

 

  • scsi disk support must be added to drivers/scsi/sd.c so that they are marked as SYNO_DISK_SATA instead of SYNO_DISK_UNKNOWN
  • disks must be marked as system disks so that the md will autodetect the system raid partition (gd->systemDisk = 1)
  • having ata as well as scsi disks will not work. quick workaround is to disable sata support from the kernel. this has the added benefit of hiding the boot disk partitions
  • if sata is disabled some important symbols are not compiled in and synobios.ko module will not load, causing scemd to halt the system
  • implement dummy synobios kernel module that keeps scemd happy

 

Performance seems to be excellent, quite possibly due to paravirtualized drivers. S.M.A.R.T. is not working, but that was expected.

 

Some things are still in todo-list:

  • compile in open-vm-tools to keep esxi from nagging about installing tools
  • clean up kernel from unneeded device drivers, also clean modules from hd image
  • try to get scemd not to constantly poll SYNOIO_SET_DISK_LED and SYNOIO_GET_EUNIT_TYPE
  • investigate if using stock kernel is possible with dummy synobios and CONFIG_EXT4_FS_SYNO_ACL

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Ok, do you need sources or binaries?

 

The binaries are here(v2): http://yadi.sk/d/fTRkFMyU3D8Yc

 

This is based on odie82544's DS3612xs_3202-Repack images, so thanks for those! Only the kernel, modules and linuxrc.syno are modified so far.

 

The archive contains both the .pat file for installation and .vmdk file for boot.

 

Create the virtual machine to esxi and add hardware:

  • IDE controller with single harddisk (vmdk file in archive). Boot from this.
  • PVSCSI controller and raw harddisks or vmdk files for data. I've tested with 3 disks so far.
  • VMXNET3 network. Only single interface in bridged mode is tested so far. MAC address can be anything.

 

Follow the installation instructions elsewhere in this forum to install the pat file.

 

I wouldn't use this for anything else than evaluation yet.

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Great work jukolaut

 

The installation was done without any difficulty on ESXI 5.1.

 

But performance don't be very high: only 5MB/s with CIFS (same performance as DSM 4.1)

In comparaison, FreeNas (aka Nas4free) transfers speed are about 25MB/s in the same environment.

 

I use Microserver N40L for this tests.

 

Have you an idea why is it so slow ?

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But performance don't be very high: only 5MB/s with CIFS (same performance as DSM 4.1)

In comparaison, FreeNas (aka Nas4free) transfers speed are about 25MB/s in the same environment.

Well, thats bad!

 

I'm not able to offer much support but can you tell about your setup: how many disks do you use for data? raw or vmdk? In esxi, does it show high cpu usage even when idle?

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But performance don't be very high: only 5MB/s with CIFS (same performance as DSM 4.1)

In comparaison, FreeNas (aka Nas4free) transfers speed are about 25MB/s in the same environment.

Well, thats bad!

 

I'm not able to offer much support but can you tell about your setup: how many disks do you use for data? raw or vmdk? In esxi, does it show high cpu usage even when idle?

 

I found the problem: it was made by my multiple tests on this VM.

 

vSphere Client told me to consolidate my snapshots (even if i had no more snapshot); After consolidate, transfers speed is identical to freenas !

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I wouldn't use this for anything else than evaluation yet.

 

I haven't yet installed it, but I will shortly on ESXi 5.1. I have an older (slow) consumer Synology myself and use FreeNAS for personal large data storage. I'm hoping to be able to use 10 drives (Raw Device Mapping) in a SHR-2 (two drive data redundancy) combination under ESXi. Do you know if your version will support this many (physical pass-through PVSCSI) drives?

(FYI: Awesome Raid Calculator: http://www.synology.com/support/RAID_ca ... hp?lang=us).

 

It would be great if I'm able to combine everything and leave FreeNAS behind. As I also support many businesses which are using Synology; to also have a virtual development & deployment testing environment before deploying the actual Synology hardware would be incredible.

 

Cheers & Thanks for all your work.

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Ok, do you need sources or binaries?

Create the virtual machine to esxi and add hardware:

  • IDE controller with single harddisk (vmdk file in archive). Boot from this.
  • PVSCSI controller and raw harddisks or vmdk files for data. I've tested with 3 disks so far.
  • VMXNET3 network. Only single interface in bridged mode is tested so far. MAC address can be anything.

 

Could you explain how to do this with no real disks ?

I store my data on a Unraid VM, but want to use the synology because of the apps to view the pictures etc ...

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After some hours of hacking I now have fully working ESXi 5.1 virtual machine setup with DS 4.2 (3202).

...

[*]investigate if using stock kernel is possible with dummy synobios and CONFIG_EXT4_FS_SYNO_ACL

 

Hi jukolaut, thanks for you work!

I'm doing some test on esx5.0 with high availability...

vm1: syn1, 3 x vmxnet3 nic (edited grub.conf, each nic with different mac), 500gb vmdk, HA plugin (active)

vm2: syn2, 3 x vmxnet3 nic (edited grub.conf, each nic with different mac), 500gb vmdk, HA plugin (passive)

When i setup HA cluster, vm1 return an error

If I look at vm1 console, I can see this:

immagine1xc.png

 

After some times vm1 fail to ceate HA cluster.

Any suggestion?

 

Thanks!

ema

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hi emma

where can i found grub.conf ? did you modify it with wincsp and wm on ?

 

Hi!

I mounted vmdk in another linux vm and I edited the grub.conf.

1) turn off xpenology vm

2) in another linux vm add the vmdk

3) start linux vm and mount vmdk, for example mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/hd

4) edit grub.conf, you can found it on /mnt/hd/boot/grub/grub.conf

5) refer to this post for editing grub.conf http://xpenology.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=55#p284

6) shutdown linux vm

7) restart xpenology vm

 

Ciao

ema

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Ok, do you need sources or binaries?

 

The binaries are here(v2): http://yadi.sk/d/fTRkFMyU3D8Yc

 

This is based on odie82544's DS3612xs_3202-Repack images, so thanks for those! Only the kernel, modules and linuxrc.syno are modified so far.

 

The archive contains both the .pat file for installation and .vmdk file for boot.

 

Create the virtual machine to esxi and add hardware:

  • IDE controller with single harddisk (vmdk file in archive). Boot from this.
  • PVSCSI controller and raw harddisks or vmdk files for data. I've tested with 3 disks so far.
  • VMXNET3 network. Only single interface in bridged mode is tested so far. MAC address can be anything.

 

Follow the installation instructions elsewhere in this forum to install the pat file.

 

I wouldn't use this for anything else than evaluation yet.

 

Thanks for Upload, but can you upload in other share provider? hier is 64k download limit, it means I need about 7 hour to download.

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Ok, do you need sources or binaries?

 

The binaries are here(v2): http://yadi.sk/d/fTRkFMyU3D8Yc

 

This is based on odie82544's DS3612xs_3202-Repack images, so thanks for those! Only the kernel, modules and linuxrc.syno are modified so far.

 

The archive contains both the .pat file for installation and .vmdk file for boot.

 

Create the virtual machine to esxi and add hardware:

  • IDE controller with single harddisk (vmdk file in archive). Boot from this.
  • PVSCSI controller and raw harddisks or vmdk files for data. I've tested with 3 disks so far.
  • VMXNET3 network. Only single interface in bridged mode is tested so far. MAC address can be anything.

 

Follow the installation instructions elsewhere in this forum to install the pat file.

 

I wouldn't use this for anything else than evaluation yet.

 

Thanks for Upload, but can you upload in other share provider? hier is 64k download limit, it means I need about 7 hour to download.

 

Sign up on Yandex Disk you'll be able to download at full bandwidth, and it's free.

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After some times vm1 fail to ceate HA cluster.

Any suggestion?

 

Thanks!

ema

 

I don't see any problem in the screenshot. The SYNOIO_ -messages are normal. Try looking at the system logs from the web console. I don't have a HA setup myself so I have no idea if that works or not, sorry :cry:

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