Oracle Solaris 11 guest operating systems do not recognize LSI Logic SAS controllers

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When you attempt to install or run Oracle Solaris 11 on a virtual machine with an LSI Logic SAS SCSI controller, Solaris 11 does not boot, or is unable to recognize devices attached to the LSI Logic SAS controller. This issue is seen on virtual machines that are compatible with ESXi 5.1 and earlier. This includes virtual machines with ESXi 5.1 and later (VM version 9) compatibility, or an earlier compatibility setting.

 

Virtual machines use virtual SCSI controllers to access virtual disks and SCSI devices. Virtual controllers appear to a virtual machine as different types of controllers, including BusLogic Parallel, LSI Logic Parallel, LSI Logic SAS, and VMware Paravirtual SCSI.

 

This issue does not apply to virtual machine with ESXi 5.5 and later (VM version 10) compatibility, which includes a workaround for the driver.

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5

Resolution

Do not use LSI Logic SAS controllers with Solaris 11 guest operating systems. Reconfigure the virtual machine to use an LSI Logic Parallel SCSI controller.

 

Alternatively, upgrade the virtual machine compatibility to ESXi 5.5 and later (VM version 10).