False CIM warning on the SCSI controller - vSphere 5.

We have had a number of CIM warnings in the Hardware Status tab in vCenter on the ESXi 5 hosts related to the SCSI controller. We have seen it on HP servers with a P220i and a P410i SCSI controller.

However, there is nothing wrong with the SCSI controller.

Turns out it is a false alarm generated by the hp-smx-provider and it can be fixed by applying a driver update (which effectively changes the hp-smx-provider with the hp-smx-limited driver, both are CIM drivers). The difference between the two is, to my understanding, that with the limited driver you cannot update the ILO firmware via the ESXi console.

There are two ways of installing the four VIBs in the driver package. Either you can uninstall the existing four VIBs and then install the driver package, the zip file, which will install all four VIBs. This requires two reboots.

Or you can unpack the zip file and update only the VIBs that are actually newer than the ones you already have installed. In our case, we only needed to update two of the VIBs. This requires one reboot.

Method 1 (uninstall/install)

List the relevant VIBs

# esxcli software vib list | grep hp

Remove the installed VIBs

# esxcli software vib remove -n hp-smx-provider
# esxcli software vib remove -n char-hpcru
# esxcli software vib remove -n char-hpilo
# esxcli software vib remove -n hp-ams

Reboot

Download the driver package fromt the HP Support Center. The file is called "hp-ams-esxi5.0-bundle-9.3.5-3.zip".

Upload it to the ESXi host and place it in /tmp/.

# cd /tmp/

# esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/hp-ams-esxi5.0-bundle-9.3.5-3.zip

Reboot

Verify that the new VIBs have been installed

# esxcli software vib list | grep hp

Method 2 (update)

List the relevant VIBs

# esxcli software vib list | grep hp

Unpack the "hp-ams-esxi5.0-bundle-9.3.5-3.zip" file and copy the following VIB files to the /var/log/vmware folder:

• hp-ams-esx-500.9.3.5-02.434156.vib
• hp-smx-limited-500.03.02.10.3-434156.vib

If you unsure about whether the other two VIBs are newer than the ones already installed, then just copy all four VIBs.

Update the VIBs

# esxcli software vib update -v hp-ams-esx-500.9.3.5-02.434156.vib

# esxcli software vib update -v hp-smx-limited-500.03.02.10.3-434156.vib

Reboot

Verify that the new VIBs have been installed

# esxcli software vib list | grep hp

When the host comes back online after the reboot it will still have the warning. Leave it for about 10-15 minutes and the warning will disappear. Also, you can try to reset the sensors and refresh the page.

Thanks to Anders Mikkelsen for finding this fix and writing the guide to method 1 above.