PCI Devices not listed under Hardware section of ESXi host leading to Power ON failure of VMs with GPU devices

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

 

• The PCI Devices option is missing under Host → Configure → Hardware :

• Powering on VMs with GPU devices fails.
  
  
• The below errors are seen under /vmfs/volumes/<datastore-name>/<VM_folder>/vmware.log:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - VLANCE: send cluster threshold is 80, size = 2 recalcInterval is 20000 us
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - Chipset version: 0x13
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - The EFI ROM is EFI2.# 64-bit.
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - WORKER: Creating new group with maxThreads=1 (16)
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - Msg_Post: Error
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - [msg.pciPassthru.initWorldInfoFailed] Failed to initialize Passthru world information.
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - ----------------------------------------
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - Module 'PCIPassthruLate' power on failed.
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - VMX_PowerOn: ModuleTable_PowerOn = 0
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - MKSThread: Requesting MKS exit
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In(05) vmx - Stopping MKS/SVGA threads


• In /var/run/log/vmkernel.log:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ In (182) vmkernel: cpu57:#######) World: vm #######: 7249: Starting world vmm0:New_Virtual Machine of type 8
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSSZ Wa (180) vmkwarning: cpu56:#######) WARNING: PCIPassthru: ####: IOMMU support is not enabled


• For the device listed below as an example, the output of the command indicates that passthrough capability is disabled.
  
  >> esxcli hardware pci list

      0000:00:00.0:
      ***
      Passthru Capable: false

      ***

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

• The BIOS setting Intel® VT for Directed I/O (VT-d) was disabled on the affected ESXi host.
• The same setting is available as IOMMU for AMD servers.
• DirectPath I/O (PCI passthrough) requires VT-d/IOMMU support enabled in the system firmware.
• Without VT-d the hypervisor cannot expose PCI passthrough capability, leading to the PCI Devices option not listing on the Host.

Resolution

• Reboot the Host and enter the BIOS/UEFI firmware of the host.
• For Intel Server, navigate to the BIOS Configurations -> Integrated IO configuration and enable Intel(R) VT-d or Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d).
• For AMD Server, navigate to Advanced Configuration or CPU Configuration and enable IOMMU.

Note: The path to the IOMMU/VT-d setting may vary as the hardware vendors may place it under different BIOS/UEFI categories.