TPM driver on ESXi reports errors

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• TPM driver on ESXi may report errors with error code 0x921 or 0x98e on vmkernel.log, similar to:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.037Z cpu112:2100954)tpmDriver: Tpm2ResMgrProcessResponse:846: Error: TPM command error code 0x921

or,
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.054Z cpu4:2099005)tpmDriver: Tpm2ResMgrProcessResponse:846: Error: TPM command error code 0x98e

• In this situation you will not be able to use the TPM 2.0 hardware from ESXi.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

Cause

This issue is caused if another operating system has taken ownership of the TPM before. By design, TPM driver on ESXi does not overwrite the ownership of the TPM on the server platform.

Resolution

To resolve this issue clear the TPM from the server BIOS before running ESXi.