ESXi 5.1 not detecting HBA adapter

Steps:

1) Make sure HBA is connected on the PCI slot and visible under esx hardware list:

esxcli hardware pci list

2) Check if VMKernel can detect any storage via Fibre Channel

esxcli storage san fc list
 
(output will be blank line if HBA driver is missing but HBA appears to be in PCI card determined from step 1)
esxcli storage core adapter rescan

3) Search and download the relevant ESXi drivers for HBA

the recommended driver (bfa) version for 82B in ESXi 5.1 is 3.0.0.0
You can download it from the following URL.
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESXi50-BROCADE-bfa-3000&productId=229

4) Download the driver and install it using following instructions:

New Installation
----------------

For new installs, you should perform the following steps:

    1. Copy the VIB to the ESX server.  Technically, you can
           place the file anywhere that is accessible to the ESX console shell,
           but for these instructions, we'll assume the location is in '/tmp'.

           Here's an example of using the Linux 'scp' utility to copy the file
           from a local system to an ESX server located at 10.10.10.10:
             scp VMware_bootbank_net-driver.1.1.0-1vmw.0.0.372183.vib root@10.10.10.10:/tmp

    2. Issue the following command (full path to the VIB must be specified):
              esxcli software vib install -v {VIBFILE}
      
           In the example above, this would be:
              esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/VMware_bootbank_net-driver.1.1.0-1vmw.0.0.372183.vib

Note: Depending on the certificate used to sign the VIB, you may need to
      change the host acceptance level.  To do this, use the following command:
        esxcli software acceptance set --level=<level>
      Also, depending on the type of VIB being installed, you may have to put
      ESX into maintenance mode.  This can be done through the VI Client, or by
      adding the '--maintenance-mode' option to the above esxcli command.


Upgrade Installation
--------------------

The upgrade process is similar to a new install, except the command that should
be issued is the following:

    esxcli software vib upgrade -v {VIBFILE}
 

ESXi host 4.1 to 5.1 upgrade stuck on 22%

If your ESXi host update from v4.1 to 5.1 stalls, crashes or freezes on 22% don't panic wait for it to finish if no joy then next time don't forget to untick disable DPM box in the upgrade wizard, works for me every time.

When it happened first time, I remotely accessed the host and found esxi host frozen on loading screen (black & yellow) on Power management services.

vCentre Single Sign On Database Connection has failed

When I came across this error
"Databse connection has failed. You can refer to the vm-sso-javaLib.log in the system temporary folder for more information" during the installation of vSphere 5.1 SSO.

I fixed it my changing MS SQL Database authentication from Windows to SQL and Windows mixed authentication.


Godd Luck!!

Power off unresponsive VM

Using the ESXi 5.x esxcli command to power off a virtual machine

The esxcli command can be used locally or remotely to power off a virtual machine running on ESXi 5.x. For more information, see the esxcli vm Commands section of the vSphere Command-Line Interface Reference.

1. Open a console session where the esxcli tool is available, either in the ESXi Shell, the vSphere Management Assistant (vMA), or the location where the vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI) is installed.
   
   
2. Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:
   
   esxcli vm process list
   
   
3. Power off one of the virtual machines from the list using this command:
   
   esxcli vm process kill --type=[soft,hard,force] --world-id=WorldNumber
   
   Notes:
   Three power-off methods are available. Soft is the most graceful, hard performs an immediate shutdown, and force should be used as a last resort.
   Alternate power off command syntax is: esxcli vm process kill -t [soft,hard,force] -w WorldNumber
   
   
4. Repeat Step 2 and validate that the virtual machine is no longer running.

For ESXi 4.1:

1. Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:
   
   esxcli vms vm list
   
   
2. Power off one of the virtual machines from the list using this command:
   
   esxcli vms vm kill --type=[soft,hard,force] --world-id=WorldNumber

Using the ESXi command-line utility vim-cmd to power off the virtual machine

1. On the ESXi console, enter Tech Support mode and log in as root. For more information, see Tech Support Mode for Emergency Support (1003677).
2. Get a list of all registered virtual machines, identified by their VMID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:
   
   vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
   
   
3. To get the current state of a virtual machine:
   
   vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate VMID
   
   
4. Shutdown the virtual machine using the VMID found in Step 2 and run:
   
   vim-cmd vmsvc/power.shutdown VMID
   
   Note: If the virtual machine fails to shut down, use this command:
   
   vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off VMID
   
   
   
   http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1014165

VMWare vConverter A General System error occurred: unknown internal error

If you come across following error whilst converting Physical machine to Virtual using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone version 5.x use following steps to overcome this message (i found these steps from different forums which seemed to have worked for some people but what worked for me is Step4).



A general system error occurred: unknown internal error.

1. Click Finish again to ignore and complete the P2V
2. From Server TCP/IP settings remove static IP addresses and set dynamic IP detection
3. (Source: VMware vConverter release notes) On ESX hosts earlier than 5.0 and managed by vCenter Server, you cannot submit conversion jobs if the name of the destination datastore contains non-ASCII characters
When you click Finish in the Conversion wizard, the following error message appears: A general system error occurred: unknown internal error. This issue is observed for VMware Infrastructure virtual machine destinations, when you connect to a destination vCenter Server and select a destination datastore that has non-ASCII characters in its name.
Workaround: Connect directly to the destination ESX host instead of the vCenter Server.
4. Download and complete the conversion using vConverter v4.3 (works every time).