ESXi installation fails on the Distributed Services Platform server

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The purpose of this article is to educate the users about a specific error that may occur during installation of ESXi on Distributed Services Platform under a certain condition.

Symptoms:
Installation of ESXi on the Distributed Services Platform server will fail with the error message shown in the screenshot below:

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x

Cause

The issue can occur when the PCI slot containing the DPU is disabled. In such a scenario, the VMware ESXi Installer will still present the DPU as an available installation device, but the installation will fail.

Resolution

This is not a bug in the ESXi product software but a side effect caused by the disabling of PCI slot where the DPU is inserted. In case the PCI slot of the DPU was disabled by mistake, please enable it and retry the installation. A reboot of the out-of-band management system, iDRAC/iLo for example, may be required to enable the PCI slot. If installation fails with the same error even after enabling the PCI slot, please raise a support ticket.

Additional Information

Note: This issue is applicable to all OEMs which support the Distributed Services Platform. HPE has documented this problem in their customer advisory, please refer https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=emr_na-a00128434en_us.