Installation guide

C H A P T E R 5 Using the VMware Service Console
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Using Devices With ESX Server
In this section, we discuss any considerations in using devices with ESX Server.
Supporting Generic Tape and Media Changers
In order for the guest operating system to see and control the media changer directly,
you must be sure that the SCSI ID in the target raw device’s configuration file matches
with the SCSI ID that ESX Server sees for that device. You can check the SCSI ID seen
by ESX Server, by viewing the output of the various files /proc/vmware/scsi/
vmhba<x>/<y>:<z>, where <x> is the HBA ID assigned by ESX Server, <y> is the
SCSI target ID, and <z> is the SCSI LUN ID.
For more information on adding a tape device to a virtual machine, see Adding a Tape
Drive to a Virtual Machine on page 136.
Editing the vmware-device.map.local File
The /etc/vmware/vmware-device.map file contains a list of devices
supported by ESX Server. This release includes support for a local version of this file,
/etc/vmware/vmware-device.map.local.
Modify the vmware-device.map.local to select different device drivers. This
file is not modified during an ESX Server upgrade, preserving your customizations. The
vmware-device.map.local is read when the VMkernel is loaded:
• Any changes to the vmware-device.map.local file require a reboot, or at
least an unload/reload of the VMkernel to take effect.
• Entries in the vmware-device.map.local files are used in addition to the
entries in the vmware-device.map file. The vmware-
device.map.local file does not need to mirror the vmware-
device.map file.
• Any vmware-device.map.local file entries that correspond to the
vmware-device.map file entries supersede the vmware-device.map
file entries.
Finding Disk Controllers
You can use the vmkpcidivy command to list physical disk controllers recognized
by ESX Server and the device names linked to them in the Service Console. Physical
disk controllers may be SCSI or block devices, such as disk array controllers.